-Caveat Lector-
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From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: January 9, 2007 2:03:41 PM PST
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The Tyranny of Theocracy
"American Fascists:
The Christian Right and the War On America" (Hardcover)
Chris Hedges
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/472
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS
In a 2004 article that served as the basis for his new book pulling
the fire alarm on thuggish Christian fascism, Chris Hedges recalled:
"Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity
School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80,
we would all be fighting the 'Christian fascists.'
The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat
Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a
new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking
control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and
the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to
create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to
take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the
buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us
against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis,
he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts.
Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the
pages of the Bible.
"...All debates with the Christian Right are useless. We cannot
reach this movement. It does not want a dialogue. It cares nothing
for rational thought and discussion. It is not mollified because
John Kerry prays or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School. These naive
attempts to reach out to a movement bent on our destruction, to
prove to them that we too have "values," would be humorous if the
stakes were not so deadly. They hate us. They hate the liberal,
enlightened world formed by the Constitution. Our opinions do not
count.
"This movement will not stop until we are ruled by Biblical Law, an
authoritarian church intrudes in every aspect of our life, women
stay at home and rear children, gays agree to be cured, abortion is
considered murder, the press and the schools promote "positive"
Christian values, the federal government is gutted, war becomes our
primary form of communication with the rest of the world and
recalcitrant non-believers see their flesh eviscerated at the sound
of the Messiah's voice.
"The spark that could set it ablaze may be lying in the hands of an
Islamic terrorist cell or in the hands of its ideological twin in
the [Fundamentalist] Christian Right. Another catastrophic
terrorist attack could be our Reichstag fire, the excuse used to
begin the accelerated dismantling of our open society. The ideology
of the Christian Right is not one of love and compassion, the
central theme of Christ's message, but of violence and hatred. It
has a strong appeal to many in our society, but it is also aided by
our complacency. Let us not stand at the open city gates waiting
passively and meekly for the barbarians. They are coming. They are
slouching rudely towards Bethlehem. Let us, if nothing else, begin
to call them by their name."
Hedges's book is a wake-up call to how the Christian-male "warrior"
zealots are waiting for the chance to turn America into an
Apocalyptic Unmerciful Christian Theocracy.
If you believe this is sensationalistic fear mongering, read the
book. Hedges is a former award-winning New York Times reporter and
mainstream journalist. He is writing based on his research and
analysis.
This is not fiction.
One of the most striking conclusions we drew from "American
Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America" is that it
offers some insight into the inexplicable political survival of
George W. Bush.
The world that Hedges enters and depicts is run by white Christian
males who reach pinnacles of religious and political power through
the use of fear. They see themselves as warriors for Christ.
Unquestioning obedience to authority and [threats of] apocalyptic
violence are integral to the Christian fundamentlist movement.
George W. Bush couldn't be a better role model, could he?
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