LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

Sara at Orcinus has another excellent post this week, where she looks at a plausible future scenario of Dominionist action post-2008-Democratic-victory (assuming, of course, there is one). It's not a very pretty picture...

An excerpt:

' The widespread public disaffection with the religious right is real and growing. The first-generation leaders are dying off; and they're losing unusual numbers of their hand-picked successors (Ralph Reed, Ted Haggard) in corruption and sex scandals. Unless the Democrats really screw it up (always a possibility), they are going to lose the 2008 election -- and with it, most of their power to work their political will on the rest of us. Past history suggests that the religous right won't return as a political force for another 20-40 years; and that the actual length of that exile will depend almost entirely on how thoroughly we manage to discredit them and their ideas. They're falling all on their own; but once they're down, it'll be up to us to make sure they stay there.

However, being out of politics doesn't mean they'll be completely gone from our midst. Those institutions they've built now constitute an entire separate subculture. They've got their own media, schools, arts, resorts, hospitals, nursing homes, malls, and community gathering places. It's entirely possible to live from cradle to grave without ever having to step outside of this carefully-created Christianist reality sphere. Even if this alternate universe loses it worldly power, it doesn't mean its residents will need to ever step outside that bubble if they don't want to. In some form -- the same, or slightly diminished -- this culture will probably continue to carry on along its own separate path. We should not imagine that just because we no longer see them goofing on the air, they no longer exist. FDR-era liberals made that mistake; we should take pains not to repeat it.

Furthermore, they’ve built shadow organizations within our most powerful national institutions -- most notably, Congress, the military, and the legal system. Losing political power will reduce the resources available to this network, hurt recruitment, and weaken its clout; but we can't afford to assume that the whole thing will just vanish on its own. How much of it remains, again, is up to us -- in this case, how effectively we can root out these religious cabals and disentangle them from our public and private institutions. On this front, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy will last precisely as long as we allow it to.

Also, as noted in the post below, they've already raised several million kids in this cultural hothouse, and carefully indoctrinated them to carry on God's work in spite of Satan's (er, our) efforts. So we need to ask: Where will these kids be in another ten or 20 years? '

The previous post she refers to in the text is the one I posted here. The following article at Orcinus on the right wing and domestic terrorism, which mentions Dominionism as a major player, is here.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY catvincent)

From LJ Maintenance, with comments here:

"This is an update regarding the previously mentioned DDOS attacks impacting site performance. We've implemented several short term strategies to help mitigate the severity of the attack. While we've tried to handle these attacks with the fewest number of users impacted, there have been, unfortunately, times when the site has been unavailable or slow, and some users have experienced errors when posting.

These are all short term solutions until the attack subsides or until we are able to absorb the traffic. Information you provide us about specific problems posting comments or entries will be processed and used to help us best tweak our mitigation application. Also, these issues are unrelated to the recent suspensions mentioned in news." (My bold. Not sure I believe that.)

(Said previous attack was yesterday - although they suffered another one last Thursday, 25 May, i.e. before the Strikethrough)

Some are muttering that this one may be the result of the Worriers for InNoSense malware. That's just a guess of course. Certainly someone is throwing stuff at SixApart's servers.

More once there's some harder news.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY navytron89)

Ok, here is something from AU to show what goes on in a theocratical controlled government.  Please note this woman wanted to change faiths from Muslim to Christian to marry her future husband and was denined it. 

Religious Freedom is something we take for granted here in America and should protect vigilantly. This also offers us a possible look into what would happen if the Fundies and Domies ever ruled America and turned us into a Christian Nation.  

Notice what would happen to this woman if she tried to go to a Sharia (Islamic) court, she faces everything from  fines to possible death. 
Could you imagine the same thing here if the Dominionist rule, segragation would come back and be forced on to the citizen of this country. 

Its LJ community like this that helps educate and inform others as well as provides us support from religious tyranny like this.   

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

While I know that some folks have lots of fun poking at trolls on other communities, this isn't the place to do so. All it does is bring them here. That last post went a little too far, and I had to delete it. I do not want this place to turn into an arena of pissing matches between trolls and taunters of trolls. nebris, you're on notice. Don't do it again. Please brag about your exploits on your own journal, and not here. And don't drag this community into your pissing matches outside of it.

And what I have said to nebris I also echo to all here: We will not tolerate this kind of stuff.

Let's get back on topic. I declare a moratorium on all discussion of WFI, its blogs and its members, unless they actually are infesting computers with malware. Any future posts about this group will be deleted.

Thanks, all. Let's resume our normal discourse, shall we?

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

The good people at Jews on First have been doing a bang-up job tracking the involvement of evangelical groups in the military.

While it's OK for religious groups to have access to the troops, it is NOT OK for the military to officially sponsor any religious group. But that was exactly what happened on Memorial Day weekend in Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta, GA:

Last-minute intervention by constitutional watchdog organizations forced the Army and Air Force to drop their sponsorship of a right-wing evangelical Christian event.

The event, "Salute to the Troops," at Stone Mountain Park near Atlanta ran without official government sponsorship. Planned military involvement in the three-day Memorial Day weekend event was also greatly reduced after Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) wrote to the secretaries of the Army and Navy.

Nevertheless, Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said he is planning to sue the Pentagon over the event.

The Salute to the Troops event was advertised locally as having official Army and Air Force sponsorship. It was to have featured official military displays and speakers, most notably Army parachute jumps and hourly Air Force flyovers -- until Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation learned of it.

Americans United wrote to the secretaries of the Air Force and the Army, confronting them with evidence of their services' official involvement in the event.

In its May 23rd letter, AU exposed the services' involvement and forced both Army and Air Force to make statements backing away from their endorsements and to greatly tone down their official participation. AU quoted a Robins Air Force Base publication calling the Stone Mountain event an "official" Air Force event. The URL AU cited, "http://www.robins.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070504-20.pdf," appears to have been taken down.

Task Force Patriot USA
The Salute's main sponsor was Task Force Patriot USA, a suburban Atlanta group whose website says:

Task Force Patriot exists for the purpose of sharing the fullness of life in Jesus Christ with all U.S. military, military veterans and families. The outreach is to those in need of gaining new growth and balance in their lives.... as they assist others, while serving Him.

According to a local paper, the Gwinnett Daily Post, TFP has ambitions to expand across the country.

This super show is not a one-shot deal. Salute to the Troops is on the calendar for the next 10 years, and Task Force Patriot is planning similar events in other major cities.

But weekend celebrations are only a minor detail. The group’s main task is to set up military support groups like theirs all over the nation.

The article linked above has all the embedded links. This was a partial excerpt. There's more- lots more- at the site.

For the newcomers here, the military has long been a very juicy target for infiltration by elements of the hard Christian Right. Unfortunately, the diversity of chaplains serving in the military has been nearly obliterated by a huge inflow of Assemblies-sponsored chaplains, who apparently are not as obedient to the requirements of being a military chaplain as the older corps was. They have flaunted the requirements of non-sectarian prayer at public events, actively pursue 'unchurched' soldiers, openly proselytize people who are their inferiors in rank, and do many other things that have started to turn the military into a religious right bastion. It goes all the way up to the Pentagon. Check the 'military' tag for past posts about this.

Worse, the influx of these chaplains and believers has created a climate of open distaste for non-believers, which was very sharply demonstrated at the USAF Academy. Mikey Weinstein's own children were cadets there, and they, along with others, reported open evangelicizing, and punitive assignment to 'heathen squads' for those who either did not bow to the pressure, or would not convert. "Jews on First" has done an excellent job in covering this. I recommend exploring their site, along with Mikey's, to learn more about this ongoing problem.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY navytron89)

Before this whole kerfuffle with WFI and LJ backlash, I've pretty much took LJ for granted.  
I was having some deep thoughts about the whole Dominionist/Fundie movement in general while working out at the gym (Good bloodflow to the brain and all that).

Discuss???? and remember please be nice to each other here........

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY vovinoiad)

I'm a man, of wealth, and tas--...

Wait, no. No, I'm not. Sorry.

Actually, I'm a working-class kind of guy in his mid-30's with an interest in the whole right-wing Dominionist's take-over of America.

Keeping tabs on it's progress, sort of thing.

I would say for more information, either check my journal or google my name, but, hey, you all seem like pretty smart cookies.

I've been a member for some time, but I'm going to start being more active for a while.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY lordsluk)

I heard this quote recently, but for the life of me I cannot remember who said this,

" You have to let go of your Empire if you want to hang on to your Democracy "

Something like that.

Sound familiar to anyone?