BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right

Subject: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:28 AM

Bill Moyers has produced a telling and somewhat scary essay on the fanaticism of the far right in America today and some of the beliefs that fuel that fanatacism.

The entire essay deserves a careful read and can be found on this page.

An excerpt follows:

"...They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed – an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 – just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire."

..."And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 TIME/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations or in the motel turn some of the 250 Christian TV stations and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same god who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?""

---

Read the original. How accurate is this? Does anyone have any confirmation about these views being as widespread as Moyers fears? Have you seen this kind of view in circulation, oral or written?

Thanks,


A

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:42 AM

No doubt Kevin can confirm its accuracy.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:54 AM

The thing that surprises me, Amos, is the number of people who are surprised to find out about this--it isn't like these people just crawled out of the sewer yesterday--they have been around for a very long time-Remember Hal Lindsey and "The Late, Great, Planet Earth"--he layed all this stuff out thirty years ago--and it was not new then--

The funny thing of course, is that, though 59% may claim to believe that the prophecies in the book of Revelation will come true, most of them have never read them, or any part of the Bible--

I grew up in a place where there were a lot of these folks, and, though they may be very sincere in their beliefs, their leaders have always struck me as cynical opportunists, not religious at all--in fact, more than a few of them create the feeling of real and significant evil when they walk into a room--If you really want to meet Satan, your best shot to start hanging out with fundamentalist evangelicals--

The people who are truly in denial about this whole business are the majority of Republicans who
haven't got a clue as to who they have invited to join their party--

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:55 AM

Pardon my glibbity. There were similar stats published less than a month ago, in Time, I suspect, about 60-some odd percent of Americans anticipating the Second Coming. I'll admit that I thought of you mudcatters, and all the end-of-America doom and gloom, and felt a little shiver at that poll. I choose to disbelieve such poll results, and hence destroy them.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:10 AM

Amos, I read two of those 'Left Behind' books, after my daughter told me I had to.

The first one was interesting. Remember that science fiction story where the protagonist and his group decide to try to escape their completely controlled, ala 1984, world? They are chased through the streets by black-suited agents, harassed by helicopters dipping low overhead, road blocks are set up that they have to find their way through or around. They are almost killed again and again. And then FINALLY they break through, they are out of the domed city. And are welcomed by others of like mind in a green world with fresh breezes blowing. The premise of the story is that only those people who fight against the control of their lives, their civilisation, are welcome in the 'real' world. The 'controllers' are the good guys.

That's what that first book reminded me of. It was a seductive process.

Then I read the second book, and horror piled upon horror. I'm not even sure whether I finished it. Talk about black and white. Everyone is either 'for us or against us'. For God or against God. And they are the only ones who know what God wants.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:13 AM

You know, I get complacent, because I tend to work with and associate with people on the right side of the bell-curve, engineers and scientists and artists and Mudcatters. So yes, it is a rude shock of re-entry to hear someone I respect, like Moyers, describe so deeply and widely held a piece of rampant, life-defying, hypnotic superstition. To invoke so complete a fabrication as part of your world views speaks to such a lack of discrimination as to boggle the mind. Yet Moyers is implying that this widespread overarching insanity is informing a significant portion of American international policy???!!??

This sounds like a cheaply made re-run of the early bloodthirsty fanatic Crusades, before the Renaissance, before the Enlightenment, before the Declaration of Independence, before the Constitution.... have we really made so LITTLE progress in the fine art of being humane?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:16 AM

For a sense of calmness in the face of this, check out the reassuring insights of David Broder: 'Darkness? Hardly'

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:19 AM

I'm going to make my comment BEFORE reading the Moyers article. Then I will read it. Then I'll come back and see if I feel the same.

There is a lot of hooey out there to be believed. There is in fact MORE out there than CAN be believed. I think the vast majority of Americans are level headed and not about to make major political decisions based on Revelations. There are some way out characters, both left and right, and the attention is naturally drawn to those walking waking disasters. BUT, there ain't no 59% accepting the wacky stuff out of Revelations.

This is an appeal to fear 'of the Right'.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Boab
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:22 AM

The loonies will take over the asylum, if you let them. Many an American is going to wake up, perhaps too late; four years is a long time for pandemic insanity to be given free reign,and even encouraged.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:39 AM

David Broder no doubt is right- as far as he goes. However, there is undeniably something very strange happening in this oountry. Those Left Behind novels -all 12 of them, with more coming - are selling like pop rocks once did. Not too surprising in one way. They are written for the sixth grade reader. Drama, murder, death and resurrection, goodness rewarded, God's face, in turn furious and benign, over all.

Not that I think that the writers are responsible for the movement. But obviously they felt the opportunity and fell into place.

And with a high percentage of the "common people" clamoring, I have no confidence that our current government will not hurry forward to lead them.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:44 AM

Okay, I gave it a read. I share a lot of the opinions of the folks in this thread, HOWEVER, 'The Awesome Madness Of The Religious Right' is a real poor response. We're going through a kind of second Enlightenment these days, and since technology has enabled world-wide participation, it's a world phenomonenon. The First Enlightenment didn't appeal to a lot of folk, science was reducting humanity from a focal point of God's green earth to a round ball in a deep and mysterious universe. Now Darwin, Freud, and a host of genetics researchers are eliminating not so much God as the need for God. This is a deeply disturbing phenomenon for billions of folk, the underpinnings of their moral compasses.
Technology gives us a bunch of tools. We have to come up with the rules of use.
I believe we are approaching not so much the millenium, but the limits of what traditional fixed religious values can achieve. Yet if we allow the values to 'float' where we gonna go? It's scary stuff.
Anthropomorphising humanity, our human race is finishing the teen years and realizing in some way we're going to leave home, and there's no going back. We may have a glorious future, yet have the power to kill ourselves off. (More than likely we'll end up in some galactic cube farm...that's another thread)
I don't blame millions of Americans who are balking at the future. It's a very human reaction. other folk are under the impression it's all gonna be a cakewalk when those fundy's come around.
The Left Behind Series for me was unreadable. So What? I remember watching a TV program where the star was a talking horse, and another one with a talking car.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: robomatic
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:45 AM

Obviously I misquoted the title of this thread (it was only half an inch above me).

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:52 AM

Now, THIS sort of "religion" is indeed a form of mental illness.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:01 AM

Why be surprised that Americans can be manipulated as easily as Arabs when it comes to economic interests preying upon people's spiritual immaturity? This isn't so different from the hate-mongering thinly based on Islam.

If you can tolerate the occasional moments devoted to the "music" (I hesitate to call it that even in quotes), just listen to Christian radio and you will see how it's being done, and how religion has been hijacked right here at home by people who can pay for air time.

But don't confuse it with Christianity. Christians are just the market for the propaganda. And a lot of us aren't buying.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:11 AM

... how religion has been hijacked right here at home by people who can pay for air time.

And what are all the "real" "christians" doing about it? Do they actively abjure and condemn these hijackers & nutcases??? Or do they keep quiet out of a twisted and misplaced pan-"christian" solidarity?

If they're not actively a part of the solution, then they're a big part of the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Alice
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:19 AM

Yes, I know of many people who believe this, including ones who go to Israel and "train" to try to help bring on the end times.

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:56 AM

The devout are always urged to seek the absolute truth with their hearts and not their minds. "It is the heart which is concious of God, not the reason." Rudolph Hess, when swearing in the entire Nazi party in 1934, exhorted his hearers: "Do not seek Adolph Hitler with your brains; all of you will find him with the strength of your hearts." When a movement begins to rationalize its doctrine and make it intelligible, it is a sign that its dynamic span is over; that it is primarily interested in stability. For...the stability of a regime requires the alligiance of the intellectuals, and it is to win them rather than to foster self-sacrifice in the masses that a doctrine is made intelligible.

If a doctrine is not unintelligible, it has to be vague, and if neither unintelligible nor vague, it has to be unverifiable. One has to get to heaven or the distant future to determine the truth of an effective doctrine...."

--Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer", Section 57. See also section 92, or better yet, read the whole book.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:55 AM

Let's not confuse statistics from surveys where dubious questions are asked with the reality of how many people ARE deep into this sort of scary nonsense. 59% is kinda high.....but 25% would be scary enough....and I suspect that a still smaller % is involved actively and not just nodding agreement. I would imagine that the activists want you to believe that they are in the majority, and that you really oughta 'get with the program'.

Sure...they are out there. I grew up in Kansas, and I met them. The difference is now that the handling of the 'movement' has become more sophisticated and insidious. You don't get wild-eyed preachers on soapboxes as much as you get seemingly 'reasonable' guys like those who write the "Left Behind" books and the Mel Gibsons, producing emotional movies and the evidence that evangelical extremists have managed to get partial power in the political arena....with agendas that go WAY beyond trying to save your soul!

The whole process is like being nibbled to death by ducks...or the metaphor about "how to cook a frog" by raising the temperature in the pot until it's too late.

I find myself in an awkward position of trying to maintain respect for the concept of "freedon of religion" for those who simply choose a personal faith and practice it quietly, and trying to resist an insideous attempt to control what *I* do and to inject their political/religious/moral adenda into the world community...often with force and lies....using the might of the last 'serious' superpower to influence events.

....and it's really fascinating to see how the Christian Radical Right is getting HELP from the Islamic fanatical right by now having a clear enemy and target to point at!

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:02 AM

and if you have any doubts that the process is gaining power, read the thread about The 700 Club and the link provided.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:09 AM

My mother believed all of that stuff in the last decade or so of her life. And she spread it to two of my sisters in the process.

My mother was in no way a right-winger, politically, either. She described herself as a fiscal liberal and a social conservative. And the church she belonged to was Presbyterian. I think that stuff is a lot more common than many people would be prepared to believe.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:19 PM

Robomatic said: I don't blame millions of Americans who are balking at the future.

Is fear of the future not the gist of what prompts many people to join fundamentalist movements? The future implies change, yet there is a natural human tendency to resist change. Fundamentalism provides a static world view where a believer can shelter his psyche from forces which are attempting to force change upon him.

And we're not talking about the "digital revolution" or anything like that. Technology is merely as a tool, not the paradigm shift many people believe it to be. With the exception of a handful of technology-rejecting groups like the Amish, fundamentalists have adopted modern technology to the same extent as the population at large. The changes that we're talking about are things like absolute equality of the sexes, accepting that nationalism is no longer a viable world view in a world laced with global interdependencies, that our entire economy is based upon a finite energy source that will run out. It's easy for many people to hide in a belief system that tells them women are intrinsically inferior to men, that their nation is founded upon principles ordained by God, and that God will miraculously provide for their needs. It's hard work to see those types of changes as inevitable and lay the groundwork for a world where they, not medieval hocus-pocus, are the fundamental guiding principles.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:14 PM

The problem that every society in the world faces right now is simply that technological changes have unanticipated social consequences--people are compelled to change their lifestyles and their workstyles, often with no clear idea of how they must be changed--there is a great amount of instability, and when lives are destabilized, people turn to back to the familiar, which, for many, is their religion--

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:15 PM

Susan, thank you. I'm interested in hearing more of your views. I echo Greg F's question: In your experience, what is the 'regular' church saying about this? More important, what are they doing? There must be some out there who are educating their 'flock', warning them against unspiritual, manipulative fear mongering.

As to the 'end times' mentality, I remember when one of my brothers got married back in the 50s he said he doesn't want any children, that it's not fair to children to be brought into this world's end times. His children are now 43 and 37.

If there is a God over all, I don't suppose it is possible for such a being to feel human emotions- but if it is, bemusement, at the least, would be appropriate.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:24 PM

Speaking of the Left Behind series, I think a great many more people are buying the books than are reading them. A set of the first four was purchased for my children by a well-meaning individual. My children haven't read them, and it turns out the guy that bought them hasn't actually read any of them either - he told us they were "really good" based on the "opinion" of someone else - someone else who in all likelihood hasn't actually read them himself. (I dutifully tried to read the first one and found it to be so poorly written I couldn't continue - the characters so poorly drawn as to be barely two-dimensional, the grammar and syntax clumsy, the chauvinism as subtle as a smack in the face with a three day old fish...) He bought them for us because we "like to read" (an odd enthusiasm and one that he can't exactly disparage but still views with suspicion.)

Someone has insisted that our Rural Bookmobile acquire a set of the Left Behind series on tape - interestingly, they never seem to circulate - maybe because the Christians with a capital C around here don't actually patronize the rural bookmobile.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:33 PM

FWIW, out here in the hinterlands of a red state, you are not considered a Christian if you are Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 01:52 PM

Where, SueB, it starts to fall apart.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:03 PM

I once worked with a young, evangelical fellow, he was married with 2 small children. We got into a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and he told me that he had donated money to a Christian organization whose main purpose was to assist in the removal of all Muslims from the Holy Land. He believes that Israel must take over the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and destroy it so that another Christian church can be erected on this spot. (The Dome of the Rock is supposed to be the site where Muhammed rose up to heaven.)

Since the Dome of the Rock is one of the most sacred sites in all of Islam, this group of Christian fanatics believe that the only way a Christian church will be able to take over the site is following a major war which thoroughly annihilates the Muslim population of the region. According to Revelations, he told me, The Rapture cannot occur until another Christian church is built on this site which is sacred to all three of the major Holy Land religions (Christian, Muslim and Jewish).

This young man seemed quite sincere in his joy over the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He felt sure that this was the beginning of the final push to demolish Islam and bring on the Rapture. None of my arguments to the contrary had any effect on his beliefs. Scary!

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:17 PM

This is one man's opinion on the far right.

Michael Savage does one of the most popular daily radio shows in the country on why the far left is destroying America and how much damage they have already done to this country.

He is an intelligent, well educated man and quite opinionated. There is a lot to be said positive concerning his arguements concerning "borders, language, and culture" and how the far left is bringing this country down.

Your opinion. My opinion. Personally, it would be nice if all of these guys were put out of business. Bill Moyers really doesn't have any credibility with me as I am sure Michael Savage doesn't have with you.

so, lets's talk about hot dogs!

I got a great PM from a fellow Mudcatter who was in Chicago and got to try one of our great and legendary Hot Dogs at one of the stands at the airport. He just had to PM me and tell me how much he loved it.

Amos, have you ever tried one? do you live in an area that truly has something famous for it's food?

What's that you say? A smegma sandwich? I think I'll pass.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:24 PM

I've felt for years that Jerusalem should not even be part of Israel. It should be a "state within a state" administered by representatives of the three religions to whom it is considered holy. If the Vatican City can exist as a separate entity within a sovereign nation, why can't Jerusalem?

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:25 PM

in all of this I am daily appalled by the sheer ignorance demonstrated by many people...(not JUST in these matters, but especially in these matters). I do differentiate between 'ignorance' and stupidity...and plain mental deficiency. Ignorance is technically curable with a bit of thinking...and WILL to think about the implications and basis of their mostly gut-feeling, superstitious, peer group inspired beliefs.

But some people BELIEVE that there is a widow in Uganda who is willing to share $27,000,000 with them for 'just a little help'. So why shouldn't they believe that Golden Trumpets are gonna sound in the sky and take the faithful off to everlasting glory?..etc..etc..It matters little that specific predictions of *THE END* are made every couple years by some group who gathers on a hilltop and waits for God's chariots....and goes off mumbling about a 'slight miscalculation' about the date...or, more usually, that God just "changed his mind", thus relieving themselves of any responsibility for dumb behavior.
   The cleverer ones just predict 'soon'...meaning within the next 5-50 years ..or so. This gives them free license to meddle in earthly affairs for the interim, because, when you are **right**, "the end justifies the means", and they simply define attempts to reign them in as 'inspired by Satan' or the equivilent.

This entire process is bad enough when it is only grass roots idiosyncrasy, but when parts of the silliness become embedded in the political process, and driving forces behind the agenda of those in power, Lord help us all ...ummm, well, you know what I mean.

There ARE conservative folk who do not behave this way, but many of them hate to think that it is really that bad, and continue to vote for candidates using the name of the party they have always trusted.....we shall see how it goes when it becomes obvious to everyone what is happening...like when even the party faithful realized that Nixon WAS a crook........

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 03:47 PM

The "Left Behind" series is a $100,000,000 publishing enterprise.

Fasten your seat belt.

Be sure to read it down to the part where the Rev. Barbara Rossing says that this is bogus Bible scholarship.

I heard a presentation by Rev. Rossing a year or so ago at the church I often attend. She has written a book on the subject of the "Left Behind" series. The title she gave her book was The Rapture Racket, but that made her publisher nervous, so they re-titled it The Rapture Exposed. Rev. Rossing, a solidly grounded theologian and Bible scholar, said that this whole "Rapture" nonsense came from gleaning selecting verses from all over the Bible, taking what they wanted out of context, then putting them together as "proof." That's sort of like cutting individual words and phrases out of a magazine and pasting them together into a ransom note. You can make it say just about anything you want and it has nothing to do with the original text. And the people doing this are the ones who tell you that you should not interpret the Bible, you should take it literally, as written, as "the True Word of God." One reviewer of the "Left Behind" series says, "Put succinctly, reading the Left Behind series is like reading books which intentionally throw out all rules of hermeneutics and exegesis. This series is the epitome of eisegesis: reading into the Bible what one wants it to say."

The "Left Behind" series picture of Jesus in the Final Battle, raising his hand in a gesture of what would normally be a blessing and causing a host of "evildoers" bellies to burst open, spilling their guts onto the ground and dying in excruciating agony doesn't seem to me to be quite the same Jesus who, in the Sermon on the Mount, gave his followers the Beatitudes, and at another point said of those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and comforted the sick and oppressed, "Whenever you did it for any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you did it for me." Nor is it the Jesus who said "Love one another" and "Forgive your enemies."

I'm no theologian, but couldn't this sort of thing be called "blasphemy?"

To answer Greg F's questions, "And what are all the "real" "christians" doing about it? Do they actively abjure and condemn these hijackers & nutcases??? Or do they keep quiet out of a twisted and misplaced pan-"christian" solidarity?" Many "real" Christians are having wall-eyed fits over this (as is evidenced by the responses that Rev. Rossing gets in churches wherever she goes). Most mainstream Christians feel that the "Rapture Christians" and Fundamentalists give Christians a bad name, to the point where some of them are hesitant to even admit to being Christians. Now that's intimidation! I wish they had the courage of some of the early Christians in the Roman coliseum: don't just lay down and die! Get up and eat the damned lions!

But the main problem is that, just like the progressives and liberals and yes, even the Democrats, as opposed to the neoconservatives, the Republicans, and other right-wingers, Christians (real Christians) are nowhere near as well organized. The reason is that there is a wide spectrum of belief that is subsumed under the title "Christian" in the same way that there is a great deal of splintering among progressives. Although they agree in general principles, they tend to bicker about minor details.

Both political progressives and progressive Christians have got to get their acts together, or they are going to be steam-rollered along with the rest of the country. Don't give up! This may be happening. Rev. Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, has been hitting the talk shows of late (and has written or published some hard-hitting articles in the magazine), and there is also the National Council of Churches and the various local chapters thereof (progressive enough that during the McCarthy era, they were accused of being a Communist front organization). The social programs that are espoused by both liberal Christians and political progressives are mutually consistent. Christians have no antipathy toward political progressives because most of them are political progressives, supporting progressive causes and candidates wholeheartedly. It's the political progressives, particularly those of the atheistic or agnostic persuasion, or especially those who lump all "Christians," progressive and fundy alike, together and refuse to have anything to do with them who are turning their backs on what could be a powerful ally.

A couple of decades ago, the right, both religious and otherwise, was just as splintered as the progressives, both religious and otherwise, are now. But far from the dim-bulbs and loonies that we like to characterize them as, they were smart enough to get together and find areas of agreement, put their minor quibbles aside, and work together for a common goal. That's why the country is in the mess it's currently in.

If people like the Rev. Jim Wallis, a religious progressive, the religiously progressive National Council of Churches, and others such as George Lakoff, a political progressive, author of Moral Politics, and recently Don't Think like an Elephant, and chairman of The Rockridge Institute (a progressive think-tank—now, isn't that a refreshing change!?), got together with others of like mind—and values—put aside any minor disagreements, and began working together, it could be like the awakening of a sleeping giant.

One need not fear religious progressives taking over the government. Most of them feel that, at least up until recently, religion was safe enough from the government. But recently, the government is not safe from religious fundamentalists. Religious progressives realize that if the religious right gets the kind of secular power it wants, the more liberal Christians will not be allowed to worship the way they wish to.

When the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century, that suddenly lent the power of the empire to a particular religious belief. Shortly thereafter, Constantine proclaimed, "Dogma is what I say it is!" The Christian Church became a monolith with the force of law. This lasted for centuries, until a renegade priest named Martin Luther wrote out his little list and nailed it to the cathedral door.

There is more than ample historical evidence for the wisdom of keeping religion and the state completely separate. Religious progressives know this all too well.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:04 PM

The religious fundamentalists who are the biggest threat to this country are the ISLAMIC religious fundamentalists.

You can rant all you want.

This is the true enemy of America. They have already infiltrated the Europeon countries. I'm counting on men of faith to not let that happen here.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,SueB
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:21 PM

Best hotdog-like food item ever purchased at a roadside stand in my life was a thuringer - a long spicy sausage-like thing served with hot european mustard on a hard roll in Luxembourg. A hotdog can be a wonderful thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:08 PM

That sounds pretty good SueB. what kind of bread was it served on?

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: DougR
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:25 PM

Now you're quoting Bill Moyers, Amos? That paragon of the left? Yep, you're going to convince a lot of people on the right of your point of view quoting good old Bill. If that's not your point, are you just attempting to be the chief source of research for the lefties? Preacher preaching to the choir it appears to me.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: DougR
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:27 PM

Incidentially, Bill Moyers was predicting a uprising from the right if Kerry won. He actually believed that those of us who support Bush would rise up and take over the government if Bush lost. What a bunch of horse pucky. Laughable really.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:28 PM

Bill Moyers is one of the few voices of sanity to be found in the corporation owned media. Like a voice crying in the wilderness.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 06:49 PM

True to form, Dougie, you flaunt your inconquerable ignorance.

Bill Moyers a LEFTIE? He was LBJ's press secretary fer chrissakes, he's a Texan, and he's an ordained Southern Baptist Minister. Hardly a Commie or Pinko Fellow Traveller.

He's one of the last people left in broadcast journalism of the Edward R. Murrow school and who has any integrity at all.

So of course right-wing ignoramuses - I hope you recognize yourself- attempt to smear him.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 07:12 PM

I gotta agree with M Ted...

Like how can 59% of the people agree with the Revelations when only about 10% of them have read them???

Don't take no Wes Ginny Slide Rule to see thru this crap...

Might of fact, WYSusan correctly points out that those who are selling this crap to folks really ain't Christinas at all..

And Rapaire throws "true believerism" into the fray...

Yeah, lot of folks don't know sh*t about what Jesus taught... Not sh*t!!!

Yeah, they're too busy consuming and can't be bothered...

Beam me up...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:07 PM

Greg, I'm sorry but Bill Moyers has long been considered a paragon of the left. And I'm not sure what being LBJ's press secretary has to do with it. If you remember Pierre Sallinger (SP?) was JFK's Press Secretary, and he went so far left he fell off the planet.

And Bobert, it might suprise you to know I'm going to Machin's Inaguaration Ball on Jan 15th. (For those who don't know, Joe Machin was just elected as the Democrat Governor of West Virginia). At the same time they all know I worked my tail off for Bush in the veteran community.

And for those who don't know me, if the true believers really lift off the Earth someday, I plan to find the best looking car with the keys left in the ignition, drive up to the best looking woman I can find, and ask her, " What was your sin, and can we repeat it?"

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:09 PM

CarolC: "She described herself as a fiscal liberal and a social conservative".

I don't actually understand that position, Carol. Does that mean she was willing to pay for anything that she deemed acceptable but on the other hand didn't find many things acceptable?

The reverse thought is far more familiar to me: Social Liberal and Fiscal Conservative. Of course one might say that only means that one is OK with the goals but doesn't want to pay for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:38 PM

we shouldn't quote Bill Moyers?

Who should we quote, the estimable Robert Novak? Or the 'balanced' Bill O'Reilly? Or the earnest, but fair, Rush Limbaugh? Or, if we REALLY want an impartial view, we can monitor the analyses of Pat Robertson.

I think I'll mull it over....

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:59 PM

How about the wise one Dennis Prager? Or Michael Savage. They are both saying plenty and people are listening.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: frogprince
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:23 PM

For quite a while I was having so many people tell me how badly I needed to read the "Left Behind" books that I was ready to scream, and ocasionally did a little. I told quite a few people that the authors of the series could kiss my "left behind." It's far out enough to take the book of Revelation as a detailed schedule of the "end times", but there is nothing anywhere in the Bible that resembles the dispensationalist/Left Behind hooey.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:38 PM

Yo, Claymore...

Hey, if them True Belivers depart and leave ya' something nice with the keys in the ignition, give me a call... I'll buy the beer...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:20 PM

Bill Moyers has long been considered a paragon of the left

Indeed he has been so considered, Landmine, by Bush-worshipers such as yourself, Rove, Norquist & Co. That don't make it so- especially considering the source. Moyers has always been pretty centrist, but even centrism is anathema to the looney right.

And since you bring it up, how anyone with real military experience such as yourself can stand to be associated with the military poseur Bush and his lying, cowardly, draft dodging, chickenhawk, "we had other priorities" crew is beyond me. Classic case of cognitive dissonance & self delusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:58 AM

I don't actually understand that position, Carol. Does that mean she was willing to pay for anything that she deemed acceptable but on the other hand didn't find many things acceptable?

She wasn't entirely against programs like welfare (for those who really need it), but she was against things like abortion and homosexuality. That's a simplified version, but I imagine you get the idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 01:25 AM

It's a good thing we all don't believe the same way. The rapture would have come and gone. I believe we create our world by how we think. We create our reality. Division in belief is not a bad thing now when there are so many out there wanting to see Armageddon.
What is madding to me is the US government reversing enviromental policy. I don't know if we can blame that on religous fanaticism or just an incredibly idiotic state of affairs that were in.
I also can appreciate what Bill said about this and the part where he questioned our moral beliefs -
And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?
What has happened to out moral imagination?

What a question- Have we lost our capacity for outrage!! Well not I, I say! What am I doing about it, regretfully not enough but it sure doesn't hurt to tell people about our fucked up government and the direction they are taking us, as Bill Moyers did in this article.
Rustic Rebel-(Tree Hugger- local chapter of the monkey wrench gang)
PS-Did anyone notice the article number was 20'666' Twilight zone music fades.....

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:43 PM

All it takes to get labeled as a "paragon of the left" or "a member of the liberal media" is to report things as they are, not just parrot the administration line, and to point out things that people really need to know, but that other people (politicians, CEOs, etc.) hope will slip by unnoticed.

Bill Moyers is one of the few honest journalists left. That, by itself, is enough to cause others to try to trash him.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Awesome Madness of the Fanatic Right
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 09:29 PM

Don, I believe there are plenty of honest journalists on both sides. Just because I don't agree with their views as expressed, doesn't mean they aren't honest or that they can be characterized as parroting anything. To do that, is dishonest.

I try and buy and read a Washington Post (left) and a Washington Times (right) every day, figuring the truth is probably in the middle.

And Greg, if you check my posts from the past, you will find that I was long ago advocating getting into Iraq, the Balkans and several other conflicts, because both the UN and the Old Europeans were incapable of concerted action. I'm not parroting Bush's lines, he's just reading my mail.

And when you attempt some perjorative diagnosis of my thought processes, you actually reveal more of your own "cognative dissonance". I mean, considering the fact that Clinton was a true Draft Dodger and a poseur, and that the elder Bush and Bob Dole were authentic war heros, I'm sure you had to have voted for them - NOT! Do I hear a little dissonance there...?

And Bobert, your on! The only real worry I have is when I have to go to any of the Doctors or car mechanics left behind. Actually I'm not so worried about the Doctors, as most of the ones at the VA are Indian or Pakistani, but where are we going to find a Wiccan mechanic?