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Ahh, election season must be coming up. How do I know? No, not by my calendar. Just look for "liberals" pandering to the religious right. The "left" in America is supposed to be weak, accepting, politically correct, and above all, reformist. We're supposed to build bridges to areas that should be burned to the ground. If you're really "radical", you might even criticize war, imperialism, corporations, and nationalism, but don't you dare try to analyze the causes. You can oppose the programs of far-right war mongerers, hateful fundamentalists, and authoritarian fascists, but you better damn well accept them and try to compromise with them. You don't compromise with these people, you kick their ass for a better tomorrow. Guess what? I don't want to reach out to Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, or Fred Phelps anymore than I do Osama bin Laden, David Duke, or the United Klans of America. I don't want to understand their backwards thought process, I want them to get the fuck away from me. The world would be a better place without ignorant, superstitious fools like them who are determined to set the world back by about half a dozen centuries. So why are the Democrats reaching out to them? Why not? They work for the same corporate oligarchy as the GOP. They're still millionare imperialists. All they care about is power. But they're not even doing that right. Why would Bible-thumpin, Gawd-fearing, nigger-hatin Joe Bob from Bumfuck, Alabama support "liberals" who move to the right when they can get the real thing?
Some things I see happening right now are:
1) The ascendancy of the Christian Fascists and their plans to turn this country into a theocracy. They've already been put in many positions of power by the Bush administration, and they're pushing hard to make turn the military into a giant Christian stormtrooper unit.
2) They're making a massive push to lock the world down under American hegemony and make the 21st century the "New American Century". Involved in this is their attempt to ram through a new doctrine that allows the US to invade and occupy any country they wish and send prisoners of war (and probably soon political dissidents) to gulags to be tortured, and soon to be killed.
3) They're attacking and undermining science in the attempt to impose an anti-intellectual theology as the main, if not only, paradigm.
4) Destroying democratic rights in this country, including due process and constitutional rights.
Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.
Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
Your government suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.
Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.
Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
People look at all this and think of Hitler – and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.
Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it; politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge, and people sense this. There is not going to be some magical “pendulum swing.” People who steal elections and believe they’re on a “mission from God” will not go without a fight. There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into “leaders” who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.
At the present time, the only open opposition to Christian fascism comes from a handful of left-liberal secularists, a few atheist groups, and a few practicing scientists who the Christian fascists "can't get to" (yet).
I can tell you what I think ought to be happening. There ought to be vocal and demonstrative opposition to the Christian fascists...of the same character that exists towards the Nazis. Whenever a prominent Christian fascist makes a public appearance, there should be a noisy and tumultuous demonstration against the bastard. Whenever they openly seek to influence public policy, they should be denounced as medieval barbarians. Whenever they "sneak" into a school board election -- one of their favorite tactics in the U.S. -- they should be exposed and compelled to "fess up" their real views. When they appear before high school assemblies with their wretched chastity campaigns, they should be loudly heckled and booed off the stage.
What I can't tell you is how to get to even this minimal level of opposition.
The vast bulk of what passes for a "left" in this fucked-up country are still flopping on their bellies whenever someone invokes religious tolerance...as if the Christian fascists are ever going to "tolerate" any left at all. Too many people still believe that religion "deserves" some kind of "special respect" even when they personally don't believe in superstition themselves. Imagine what things would be like if we took the same attitude towards racists...if we said, well, the racists are wrong but we still have to "respect" people who identify with "race".
So most of the "left" has stood around with their thumbs up their asses while the Christian fascists go marching on. When enough of the left gets up off its belly and is ready to vigorously stand up against Christian fascism...then maybe something can be done.
If it's not already too late.
http://www.nypress.com/18/22/news&columns/taibbi.cfm
Excerpt:
- "This is a mistake, and it is the same mistake people have made for centuries: underestimating the American zeal for superstition, for boobism, for living the intellectual lives of farm animals. A large statistical majority of Americans would rather live their whole lives in perpetual fear of the devil than listen to ten minutes of common sense. When you consider where these people live intellectually, the idea that the Democratic Party can somehow succeed in Middle America by making small tactical changes, by waving a few more flags, seems absurd. You either believe in the devil or you don't; and if you don't, you're never going to fool these people. The Republicans, for all their seeming "confusion," understand this now better than ever. Their seemingly open attempts in recent months to radicalize and embolden their evangelical base may have had a temporary desultory effect with regard to their poll numbers."
http://www.lefthook.org/Culture/Miller050205.html
Excerpt:
- "There is a movement in America called the Religious Right. Make no mistake about it. They will deny it. They will tell you they are not "monolithic". According to them, there is no grand design or scheme to rise to power in America. While it is true that there are many different heads to this Hydra called the Religious Right, ultimately, they are working simultaneously, and with great fervor, to achieve several common objectives. They will not rest until America declares their "brand of Christianity" the national religion. Their appetite for the suppression of gay rights is insatiable. In their paradigm, humanity has evolved beyond the need for fallacious theories like Evolution, and it must be challenged in public schools. School prayer must return, and abortion must go, before these Christian soldiers will lay down their arms."
Two very good articles, both further elaborating on the subject. So just in case I haven't gotten through to you here, I'll continue my ranting. Many people might yell hyperbole (oh noes!), but these people really do want to set time back about half a dozen centuries. I'm amazed when those on the left, even the radical left, try to "reach out" to these morons. You can't reason with these people! Would you try to "reach out" to the KKK, or the Nazis, or to King Louis? They don't want to reach out to you. They think you're going to some pit of fire and you're going to burn there for eternity, while some red guy with horns points and laughs. These people think the Enlightment and the Renaissance tainted the "greatness" of Christianity. These people are willing to deny science, fact, reason, logic, and common sense to spread their backwards ideology. Their message is simple: hate and intolerance. They make decisions based on a world of fairy-tales and mythology, and with no connection to reality. Their thought process has been preconditioned through years of religious and political brainwash, and numerous defenses have been programmed in order to not question their beliefs.
We talk a lot about the Muslim extremists who commit horrible acts in the name of their religion. Do you think there is some kind of mysterious difference that prevents Christians from doing the same thing? If you think Christians or any fundamentalists in general wouldn't do what Islamic extremists are doing, you're quite mistaken. Horrible acts have, are, and will be commited in the name of Christianity. Fundamentalists of any kind use extreme rhetoric and actions to further their backwards cause. The present-day Muslim world just happens to be ripe for the taking. They are your enemy, just like any other hate group or war mongering nationalists.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: You don't compromise with those people, you kick their ass for a better tommorow.
~Peace and Solidarity
Southernmissfan
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