Republicans think they can put right-wing religion above the rule of law. That might be their biggest mistake.
By Robert B. Reich
Issue Date: 05.06.05
American Prospect
In the religious war now being waged by the Republican Party, battles are designed not to be won but to mobilize troops for larger battles to come. The ultimate goal is not to dismantle the wall between church and state, although this would be a byproduct. It is to bring the majority of Americans who consider themselves religious into the Republican Party, thereby securing the GOP’s dominance for generations to come.
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A Fine Christian Nation
Sex Trumps Torture and Murder
DAVE LINDORFF, CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04262005.html
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we don't see nearly the public interest in this scandal, don't see nearly the media coverage, and even when, as happened this week, the top generals who oversaw the whole thing, and who helped try to cover it up, are exonerated by the government, there is little public outcry, as there was when the Roman Catholic Church tried to exonerate the bishops who covered up the sex abuse scandals in their dioceses.
The sex abuse in the Catholic Church, while outrageous, was the result of human frailty. No one organized it. No one defends it.
Compare that with American torture of captured enemy fighters and suspected terrorists. It was clearly organized: there are memos all over the place, from the White House to the Pentagon to the CIA to senior commanders' offices in the field, authorizing, encouraging and even prescribing specific types of torture. It was conducted with the knowledge of senior officials, military and civilian. And once the horrors of the torture program were revealed, it was actually defended, not just on the street and in the media, but in the halls of government.
What a fine Christian nation we have become!
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They Were Young Once, and Fit
http://207.44.245.159/article8646.htm Information Clearing House
By Sheila Samples
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They're coming after our children -- sweeping them all up -- bullying them at schools, stalking them, offering them big bucks to join the military. And there's no one to stop them. Servile Americans, even those who can still see, feel helpless. When faced with the decision to stand up and speak up, or give up their children, they are bombarded from all sides with strident demands for patriotism so, like their counterparts of empirical Rome, Americans await their fate -- their children's fate -- in silent despair.
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Amazingly, the republicans and their allies are shamelessly pandering to the extremist-christians of this country by portraying themselves as Christian themselves. And everybody’s buying it. Using any tactic they can dream up in their rovian nightmares, They have brought the country to the edge of the abyss of theocracy, and despotism.
A little recap, perhaps, on some of the actions of these ‘christians’. We bombed the snot out of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban. A brutal theocracy. Murdering in the meantime uncounted thousands of Afghans. Leaving that ruined country behind, we moved onto Iraq, another defenseless country, to depose a despot.
In the course of destroying Iraq, we murdered over 100,000 Iraqis. Our DU munitions have poisoned the bodies of the Iraqis, our own military and allies, and poisoned forever, the environment of Iraq.
So, here’s my question. Where the fuck, anywhere, did they find the justification for all that in the teachings of Jesus Christ?
I hear a lot of quoting of the Old Testament by these ‘christians’, but not one by the Christ they profess to follow. Am I the only one who’s noticed this? It sure hasn’t been remarked on by the Consolidated Corporate Media of America (CCMA), that continues to spread the lie.
Neither of these groups, the corporatistas in power, and their extremist ‘christian’ allies are anywhere near being Christian. If we are the Christian nation they cravenly proclaim, than we should be rising up in righteous anger, and throwing them out.
Both groups think they are using the other to reach their goal. That goal seems to be a despotic theocracy with aristocrats ruling, and the common people obeying. Oh, and paying to support the aristocratic lifestyle. How else to explain the ruinous bush tax cuts to benefit the rich; the destruction of the unbelievers; the destruction of the social safety nets, and the destruction of the environment? The corporatistas worship only the dollar. The ‘christians’ worship only the twisted interpretation they put on the words in a book. We could go on. The list is endless. How are they different from the Taliban? How are they different from Saddam Hussein? How different are they from Adolph Hitler?
Are we so cowed by these soulless people that we will allow them to do that to our children and grandchildren? Or are we so consumed by the fear they’ve whipped up, that we will grasp at any “man on horseback” that comes riding up to save us?
A fine ‘christian’ nation indeed.
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