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Now The American Conservative magazine is running an article, “Hunger for Dictatorship“
(subtitle: “War to export democracy may wreck our own.”) on fascist tendencies in the American right, particularly in the current administration. It’s author, Scott McConnell, quotes Lew Rockwell:
…. “the most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. …. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.”
Then he says there is
…. a mood among some conservatives that is at least latently fascist. Rockwell describes a populist Right website … as “hate-filled … advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now.” One of the biggest right-wing talk-radio hosts regularly calls for the mass destruction of Arab cities. Letters that come to this magazine from the pro-war Right leave no doubt that their writers would welcome the jailing of dissidents. …. That mood, Rockwell notes, dwarfs anything that existed during the Cold War.
“It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state.
The new ideology of the red-state bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on earth—not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself.”
In case you didn’t think of it, that is idolatry, which is not a high-ranking virtue in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. It’s also not smart. We become like what we worship; so if there is Good God, then I want to worship That One, not some cheap (morally speaking) human militaristic substitute.
McConnell says we’re not there yet, and points out some evidence.
…. America hasn’t yet experienced organized street violence against dissenters or a state that is willing—in an unambiguous fashion—to jail its critics. The administration certainly has its far Right ideologues …. But the Bush administration still seems more embarrassed than proud of its most authoritarian aspects.
I say: True, the Nazi’s were more violent at home more quickly, and that is, so far, a significant difference. But hate-filled rightist propaganda is moving our culture that way. And the Administration continually pushes its agenda while not speaking very openly about it, and constantly expands the boundaries of what’s permissible with “little” moves on several fronts at once. That was very much the method of Nazi development throughout the thirties. And as to the Bush administration seeming “more embarrassed than proud of its most authoritarian aspects”, well, Hitler had that act down pat. Let the underlings seem too extreme while the guy at the top looks more sensible. I’m not buying it. They guy at the top is as guilty as the rest.
…. the very fact that the f-word can be seriously raised in an American context is evidence enough that we have moved into a new period. The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table …
There.
“The end to American democracy” has been put “on the table.”
It hurts even to say so, but
it’s well known that the name “Christian” is being widely used to promote these developments.
It is being used falsely, treacherously, even blasphemously. These are not Christian attitudes or goals or techniques, and those who promote them are betraying the names and values of Christ and of Christianity.
We should not let ourselves think of these leaders as, or call them, “Christian,” or in any way encourage or justify their behavior and their deceptions. We should, as Jesus recommended, judge them by their fruit.
I’m a little shocked to see the christian right being compared to the nazis because I had the same thought just the other day. I have an interest in Jewish history and culture. Recently I was watching a documentary on the beginnings of the holocaust, and repeatedly thought of how similar that was to what is going on now. It’s really creepy. When asked why they, the survivors, didn’t do anything about Hitler, they said it all happened little by little. They kept thinking it would get better. Kinda like the frog in the boinling water. All I can say is … God help us.
At risk of throwing a terrible curve into this, I am of the opinion that national electoral politics is dead. Unlike local and perhaps state campaigns, I believe the game is rigged. That is because I’ve spent some time reading about the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (the Encyclopedia Britannica is a great source – not the online version either), and upon studying the nature of presidential administrations since Kennedy, I believe they have all pretty much been spokespersons, not true wielders of power. So why have the electoral riot every four years? Because both sides of Congress have a vested interest in the electorate’s impression that democracy is still in place, or else they would all be in trouble. But they are liars too, who have abdicated their constitutional responsibility to monitor 1) war, and 2) economics during wartime – they have slowly doled out responsibility to the president through moves like the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. For a drop-dead shocker, read the constitution if you haven’t done so in the last five or ten years. We are light years away from it. Anyway, I think the game is rigged, although the powers that be always seem to roust out members of the Skull and Bones club or at least the Fabian Society, whether Democrat or Republican. (Check out Fabian Society too – known as “New World Order.” Every president for a half century, I believe, has been a member. This alone makes a liar and pretender of anyone who would run as president. He knows full well that he is, for most purposes, a puppet.
1. I very much appreciate that sentiment (Christian Democratic party)! But my take on it is: there already is a “Democratic” party, with lots of contacts, connections, motivated grass-roots, etc. The amount of energy and money it would take to establish a “third” party would be enormous and I, frankly, don’t think we have time. We need to go with the strongest “champions” we have, and quickly, for the sake of the survival of all of us.
a) There are elements in the Democratic party I’m very uncomfortable with, but that would also be true of a “Christian Democrats” party.
b) Sites like dkos are getting a lot more exposure for believers and Christian thinking among the secular and agnostic/atheistic elements of the party, and are being received with increasing courtesy and respect.
c) There are lots of secularists and the worst kind of moral relativists in the Republican party, as we know, and they have taken over. Much of the energy in the Democratic party at present comes from very profound roots in moral outrage. And (most of) the issues that generate that outrage are ones we can vigorously support.
2. Thank you. The real Power is on “our” side — although not in a partisan sense. But there IS a “Kingdom of God” and it is here in the world now, and the neocons are not it. Speaking the truth in love, and keeping it up!!, is our great strength and advantage.
At last, I realize that a least some other believers are actually reading the Bible – I had begun to wonder. Because of the propaganda blitz now emerging from the mouths of dear brethern, the times have begun to feel like “the Night of the Living Dead.” This is refreshing. Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you !!! Thank you for saying these things and telling things as they are. Why are we not forming a Christian Democratic party TODAY and getting this word out?