Diatribune

copyright paul kane 2007 all rights reserved

Recently, right wing evangelical Christians gathered to celebrate the founding of Jamestown:

http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=cs_&page=NewsArticle&id=9178

They hailed Jamestown's founding as proof that America was established to be a Christian land, and they hailed thier celebration as a reconsecration of America to that dream.

Funny thing, though, every history of Jamestown I've read says that Jamestown was founded in order to make money:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Company

The gathered evangelicals seemed to celebrate that aspect of Jamestown's history quite enthusiastically too, trafficking in trinkets, and ambitiously collecting donations.

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So it seems that right wing evangelical religion today is able to serve more than one God; Jehovah AND Mammon.

Right wing evangelical religion also seems to be very interested in not only giving to God what belongs to God, but also in giving to God what belongs to Caesar. The other day, Dick Cheney warned the graduates at West Point about the ambitions for theocratic domination harbored by extremist Muslims:

The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070526-1.html

But did he also warn them that there is a powerful theocratic group IN America that seems bent on imposing its ideology ON America? At the Jamestown gathering, right wing evangelical pastor John Blanchard:

... repeatedly asked God to prepare the gathering for the task of taking back the nation for Christ.

“Heavenly Father, we thank you for our foundation of the cross,” Blanchard prayed. “And, God, we want to take this land back. God, I pray this weekend you will empower us, Lord, through the irresistible force of the Holy Ghost. God is going to anoint your people, Lord, to blow the trumpet and, Lord, to declare that we’re the lords of this generation.”

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"lords of this generation"

That's quite an ambition, isn't it, and not very democratic? Another speaker at the Jamestown celebration, Bishop Harry Jackson, declared that one of the biggest problems with America is that

The individual can do whatever he pleases.

How well does that stuff about lordship and curtailing the individual stand up next to the Declaration of Independence?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/text.html

Kind of shreds the Declaration, doesn't it?

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Well, at least folks like Jackson don't want to impose theocracy through force, like (extremist) muslims do, right? But then why are they against the hate crimes bill? Why do they need to be able to perform hate crimes if they don't INTEND to perform hate crimes?

According to the Carpetbagger Report, a right wing Christian terrorist (unsuccessfully) struck an abortion clinic this spring:

A package left at a clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device that investigators said Thursday could have been deadly.

The incident came just days after a national abortion group alerted providers around the country to an increased risk of violence.

The device, found in a duffle bag Wednesday, “was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death,” said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department.

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10638.html

A right wing Christian terrorist showed up at Falwell's funeral:

Mark Uhl, a student at Liberty University, was in possession of homemade bombs when he was arrested at Falwell's funeral. He reportedly planned to use them against any protesters who might disrupt the festivities. Uhl had this to say on the social networking website My Space. "Christians, fear of death, fear of death. The fear of death shows you don't believe." He added this eye opening statement as well. "God needs soldiers to fight so his children may live free. Are you afraid??? I'm not. SEND ME!!!"

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...

Jeffrey Feldman suggests that right wing Christian hate mail may be on the rise because of recent political events:

a Christian nationalist group (Fidelis) that had long been in political remission, suddenly sprang back to life and sent blackmail letters to the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and---most alarmingly--the threat of home-grown authoritarian violence against American citizens that had been at bay since the abortion clinic murders of the 1990s, suddenly re-emerged in the form of hate mail calling for the sodomy, rape and murder of two young women formerly employed by the John Edwards' campaign.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/return-of-1990sstyle-rig_b...

Attacks on abortion clinics continue:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=52978

According to a 2005 article, hate crime is on the rise in the USA:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0603/p03s01-ussc.html

In Blackwater, it can be argued, the Christian right wing ALREADY has a private army at its disposal.
http://www.mediamouse.org/features/092706black.php

Meanwhile:

Nearly half of Americans, 46%, believe that it may be acceptable to deliberately target civilian populations in war time. An average of 75% of Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco believe that such attacks are never acceptable.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...

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At the Jamestown gathering, Rev. Wellington Boone literally cited

...Muslim countries as models of partnership between government and religion.

“If you don’t think that’s right,” Boone said, referring to God’s ownership of the church and the state, “check out Islam….You couldn’t tell any Islamic nation that kind of foolishness, because their book, the Quran, is the basis by which government is being run.”

Boone also advocated death for homosexuals!

Remind me, Dick Cheney, who should we be afraid of?

Cheney:

The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology.

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Bishop Ken McNatt said, at the Jamestown celebration,

We have been placed here to take charge.

Let us ask ourselves, what happens if persuasion and conversion don't result in 100% Christianization of America? How are the right wing Christian evangelicals going to complete their theocratic takeover of America, how are they going to "take charge", if that's what they are aiming for? What are they going to do to the holdouts?

Chris Hedges thinks that they will eventually turn to violence to get thier way (more than they have already):

http://www.amazon.com/American-Fascists-Christian-Right-America/dp/07432...

One could argue that the youth Christian movement revealed in the movie, Jesus Camp:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Camp

and the militaristic (though so far peaceful) teen Christian movement guided by Ron Luce:
http://www.amazon.com/American-Fascists-Christian-Right-America/dp/07432...

with the help of conditioning by the violence oriented video game based on Left Behind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind:_Eternal_Forces

could result in a massive and potentially brutal Christian army ready to enforce God's percieved will. Hopefully to suggest that is sheer paranoia.

But, as far as I can tell, the religious right in America is deadly serious about using any and all means to take over this country, to turn it into a theocracy, and to tear the Consitution to shreds.

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In a statement that is a wonder of twisted irony, Televangelist John Hagee said

"Democracy in America is being hi jacked by activist federal judges who are trying to re-write the Constitution from the bench,” Hagee said. “Thanks to President George Bush, we have two conservative Supreme Court justices, and partial-birth abortion is now against the law.”

Of course, there is nothing about partial-birth abortion in the Constitution! It takes unbounded activism to read it in there.

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John Hagee is the man who spoke stirringly to AIPAC recently, implying that when it comes to US policy towards Israel, there is a 15 million strong right wing evangelical tail wagging the dog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt5Urh7Ctzw

At the Jamestown celebration,

Hagee followed McNatt with a plug for his pro-Israel prophecy book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Prelude To War, which he described as being the authoritative text on the Middle East conflicts.

“If you want to know what is going on in the Middle East,” Hagee said, “I urge you to read Jerusalem Countdown.”

Supposedly Hagee predicts that 2007 will be a signifigant year for the Middle East and the world.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnwell/barnwell73.html

That could be an unsettling thought. A key point to understand about Hagee is that apparently he does not fear nuclear war, and he's not very concerned about the Constitution:

Hagee doesn't fear a nuclear conflagration, but rather God's wrath for standing by as Iran executes its supposed plot to destroy Israel. A nuclear confrontation between America and Iran, which he says is foretold in the Book of Jeremiah, will not lead to the end of the world, but rather to God's renewal of the Garden of Eden. But Hagee is ultimately less concerned with the fate of Israel or the Jews than with a theocratic Christian right agenda. When Jesus returns for his millennial reign, he tells his television audience, "the righteous are going to rule the nations of the earth When Jesus Christ comes back, he's not going to ask the ACLU if it's all right to pray, he's not going to ask the churches if they can ordain pedophile bishops and priests, he's not going to ask if it's all right to put the Ten Commandments in the statehouses. He's not going to endorse abortion, he's going to run the world by the word of God The world will never end. It's going to become a Garden of Eden, and Christ is going to rule it."

Hagee seems to be positively eager for war with Iran and he IS influential in Washington:

Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West. ... he launched Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which, as the Christian version of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he said would cause "a political earthquake."

At CUFI's kick-off banquet at the Washington Hilton, attended by over 3,500 members, Republican support for both Hagee's effort and his drumbeat for war with Iran were on full view. Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman told the group that "no regime is more central to the global jihad" than Iran. Just two days before, Newt Gingrich and John McCain made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to sound the same message, leading Benny Elon, a member of the Israeli Knesset, to comment to the Jerusalem Post that their remarks originated with Hagee. Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback also addressed the group, and Bush sent words of support to the gathering. Republicans, and even some Democrats, spoke at CUFI events to show their "support for Israel."

http://www.alternet.org/story/39748/

And apparently Hagee isn't shy about his intention and ability to influence the course of US foreign policy:

To prevent the Bush Administration from pressuring the Israelis into turning over even more land, Hagee, the pastor of San Antonio's Cornerstone Church, and the head of a multi- million dollar evangelical enterprise, recently brought together 400 Christian evangelical leaders -- representing as many as 30 million Christians -- for an invitation-only "Summit on Israel."

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0604/S00212.htm

And don't expect that this will necessarily change when Bush leaves the Oval Office. Even the Dems are falling all over themselves to talk God Talk:

http://www.alternet.org/story/53591/?page=2

Hillary Clinton, the Dem frontrunner, has made statements that have been, or could have been, designed as music to John Hagee's ears:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) accused the Bush administration of playing down the threat of a nuclear Iran and called for swift action at the United Nations to impose sanctions on the Iranian government.

The senator's statements, in which she said the administration should make it clear that all options remain on the table for dealing with the Iranians, came during a speech about the Middle East on Wednesday night at Princeton University

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/19/AR200601...

We all know what "all options remain on the table " is code for.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'll vote for the Democratic candidate in 2008. 8 years of Bush have cured me of any tendency I might have had to vote third party. But still, I can't help but think back on the day when Martin Luther King was considered a radical because he called for peace. How quaint such "radicalism" seems in a world where an unelected televangelist with dreams of Armageddon seems to whisper authoritatively into the ear of whoever sits on the 'throne' in the Oval Office, a modern day Grima Wormtongue.
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