Onward Christian Soldiers

[PhoneLobster]

So anyway religion is popular around here, and one thing that has been touched upon a couple of times is the highly organised nature of the conservative Christian movement and its desire to corrupt and conquer the institutions of modern democracy so they can turn back the clock on the enlightenment.

Especially in, where else, the USA!

I think it is a fascinating subject. Compass recently screened this interesting channel 4 documentary.

Where the hacks come from
(PS Whoever posted that video left minutes of a prior program and ads before it, skip to about 2 minutes and 30 seconds for the documentary).

It is all about a christian hack college that explicitly exists for pumping out the drooling foot soldiers that Republicans use to knock doors, man phones, staff campaigns and offices, and ultimately become political appointees and the successors of the politicians themselves.

And these guys are succeeding in their quest to conquer the USA for "Jeeeeeheebus", despite the fact that they are some crazy ignorant sons of bitches.

The documentary is frankly entirely spoken in the subjects voice and is very mild and favourable. And they are STILL crazy ignorant sons of bitches.

You got to just LOVE it when one of the students in a college where EVERY course obsesses over Christianity manages to actually say that Christianity is one of the oldest religions in the world! All they ever do is study Christianity and he clearly hardly knows the first thing about it!

Personally though I think the most revealing aspect is that these guys paint the entire situation as a black and white fight between good and evil with them of course being the forces of good in a crusade to rescue society.

And then, at about 29 minutes and 30 seconds when they do their first practical application of their colleges quest they are campaigning for three utterly evil issues!

Go watch that bit. Because you won't believe me when I tell you what these sacred Christian saviours are campaigning for with perfectly straight faces.

But I'll tell you anyway.
1) Repeal The Estate Tax
2) Privatise Health Care
3) PREVENT Compensation of victims of Asbestos

If you ever needed proof that religion manufactures willing submissive totally duped soldiers of the insane aristocracy this is it.

And they are planting these utterly insane fanatics all over your political process, the Republican party and much of your government.

Why else do you think oldy mc whitey pants HAD to pick a VP that would placate the insane fundies? Odds are good half his campaign is managed by them.

So yeah, the Christianist movement. Have you heard of them? Do you know what that word "Christianist" means? Did you know they are this organised? This powerful? And have already gotten as far as they have?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Here's a direct link to PL's video (a different video had taken the number one spot in the search results link he posted):

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?do ... tary&hl=en

And believe it or not, I was aware of some of this organization. They've had their own colleges in the U.S. for some time. In fact, one such college is depressingly close to where I live. And I just found out from that link that U.S. News ranks them as one of the top regional colleges in the Midwest. In case anybody had delusions that those rankings meant anything.

[PhoneLobster]

They've had their own colleges in the U.S. for some time.

It's not entirely the same as the run of the mill fare.

See the story isn't the fact that there are these unfortunates who went from homeschooling to college to life as a church going zombie without ever being exposed to anything other than hard core indoctrination for their entire lives.

That's really really old news.

The real story here is the fact that this time is that this college acts as a direct and explicit channel between the conservative political aristocrats and an army of church zombies with an agenda of total biblical domination.

Both groups seek to take advantage of each other who will win is questionable, but in the mean time they intend to stomp the crap out of your democracy and replace it with theocracy.

The strategy, stated boldly and with pride is to simply by infiltrate every single aspect of government and business with their agents.

It's almost like the School Of the Americas except for Christian fundamentalist revolutionaries.

That is pretty damn spooky. Don't you think?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Well, it's a whole new level, but Cedarville has been helping to lay out the so-called intellectual groundwork for creationist arguments for years. You can argue that The Creation Museum is their greatest achievement, as they've been giving "scientific" cover to those arguments.

And they've also managed to build a reputation for a certain degree of academic excellence, thus helping to mainstream their crazy, deluded ideas even more. It's like Cedarville is Step 2 of the master plan and Patrick Henry is Step 3.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, it's a whole new level, but Cedarville has been helping to lay out the so-called intellectual groundwork for creationist arguments for years. You can argue that The Creation Museum is their greatest achievement, as they've been giving "scientific" cover to those arguments.

BWAHAHAHAHA

The truth is actually much less interesting than what's been implied here; the Christian conservative movement has been losing a lot of ground. For one, the demographics are against them. Every year they comprise a smaller share of the electorate. Partly because of the way demographics are changing, partly because the US is slowly but surely becoming more tolerant.

Though when you think about it, we were very lucky that the religious right abandoned Carter and that the other half of their alliance (the neocons, the libertarians, and the business conservatives) have run the Republican party into the ground. Reagan and both Bushes played the base like retards mostly because they (rightfully) realize that giving into the demands of the religious right will reduce their party to a rump that's just unable to compete nationally.

But it's happening already due to the fundamental governing flaws of the other half of the GOP alliance and just the out-and-out incompetence of the Bush administration. McCain was really the party's best effort to hold the alliance together--note the sheer hatred Guiliani, Romney, and Huckabee got from people not in their constituency.

I mean, seriously, sooner or later the religious right will just have to wake up to the fact that:

A) Pro-choice legislation will not be enacted on a widescale margin.
B) The death penalty will never see a widespread reinstation.
C) Christianity will not get more than a token effort to be spread to the rest of the nation.
D) The WASP demographic of this nation is permanently going to be on the decline.

Why? Well, if they actually pursued these agendas to the point of their satisfaction, it would pretty much crush their party. It's like gun control for the Democrats. If they actually pursued this issuew beyond a token nod it would be like cutting off their hands. But the Democratic party can live without this issue. The religious right can't.

If Obama wins, expect to see open warfare in the GOP party after 2010, if not sooner. The other half of the GOP equation has screwed things up too much and haven't included their base in enough of the important decisions.

[TarkisFlux]

I mean, seriously, sooner or later the religious right will just have to wake up [...]

I dunno. With sufficient faith and some heavy compound doors I'm pretty sure you don't ever have to wake up to reality.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I also forgot an E:

E) There's going to be gay marriage and they're going to have to treat gay people as equals. The other goals may see some degree success in staving off, but E is not negotiable at all. It's going to happen.

I dunno. With sufficient faith and some heavy compound doors I'm pretty sure you don't ever have to wake up to reality.

lol, that's so true.

I mean, in Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater (yes, THAT Goldwater) warned the Republican party not to form an alliance with the religious right because in the long run it would end up wrecking their party.

The funny thing is that Goldwater could not have predicted how long the Republican party could end up stringing the religious right along while still getting their votes. Ronald Reagan saw the height of the religious right's power during his administration with perhaps the routing of 1994 a close second. But exactly how much in the way of their core goals did he enact? Medicaid/care can no longer fund abortions and they got the harder stance towards Russia and dicksucking towards Israel that they wanted. That is downright pitiful for a party that controlled all three branches of government. Fuck, man, Reagan elected pro-abortion judges.

And why is that? Because the religious right's platform is fundamentally fucked. If George W. Bush didn't wring every last drop of the GOP's ridiculously overhyped and patently untrue 'selling point' of being the party best suited to fight TWAT (the war against terrorist), we would've seen the 2006 electoral rout... in 2002. And look how long that lasted them. If this trend continues and Obama doesn't fuck this up, the GOP will be reduced to a size of 35-30 seats by 2010.

Anyway, George Orwell said that his inspiration towards Animal Farm came from watching a boy beat a horse in order to get it to work. And he realized that if the horse was aware of its strength that the boy nor any humans would have any power over them.

Right now, the boy is the paleo/neoconverative slash libertarian wing of the party and the horse is the religious conservatives. In real life, we know that the horse would never turn on the boy but the religious right is considerably more selfish in pursuit of their goals so who knows.

[Koumei]

best suited to fight TWAT (the war against terrorist)

Win.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You have Jon Stewart to thank for that one, though it was originally called The War Against Terra--a rather clever pun mocking our President's inability to pronounce Terror and his anti-environmentalist agenda.

[PhoneLobster]

The thing is though that it doesn't matter if their real voter base is shrinking the crazy christians have an organized agenda to have a greater control than their numbers justify in a democracy.

If they succeed in taking over the Republican party, pretty much a stated goal, then in your two party system they have to screw up pretty damn badly before your choice changes from a choice between Crazy-Christian party and Whatever-The-Democrats-Feel-Like-Being party.

If they succeed in getting appointed to and infiltrating government positions and agencies then they will have a major crazy christian nepotism impact for decades or longer.

And their beliefs stated frequently are not beliefs that mesh well with democracy, they want to take the vote away from non christians, they follow their invisible friend's instructions ahead of the law of the land, and ultimately they want to overturn the constitution and secular modern government and the enlightenment itself. Don't believe me, go out and dig around and you quickly will find them saying as much in their own words.

There was a really great documentary about how Hillsong in Australia set out to use other strategies proven by their American Pentacostal Brethren to wield a massive undemocratic power beyond that justified by their constituency, and basically succeeded.

I should try and find that... no, failed, blast.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The thing is though that it doesn't matter if their real voter is shrinking the crazy christians have an organized agenda to have a greater control than their numbers justify in a democracy.

If they succeed in taking over the Republican party, pretty much a stated goal, then in your two party system they have to screw up pretty damn badly before your choice changes from a choice between Crazy-Christian party and Whatever-The-Democrats-Feel-Like-Being party.

That's the sole saving grace of the two-party system in America. The party that intends to encompass the most positions wins, period. This is the only reason why the religious right still has any power or influence in the United States--it's because the other wing of the party needs them to accomplish their agenda.

But if the religious right hijacked the GOP, it'd be the immediate end of the party. The corporate wing, which doesn't care one way or another about the religious right's ridiculous social conservatism as long as they have a friendly party, would end up supporting the Democratic party. It's just the sheer numbers game and the coalition that actually provides the money wants the winner. Sure, they've supported the GOP because all things being equal them being in power would get them more influence. But they won't support a party that's going to lose because some influence is better than none.

In fact, that's exactly what's happening in the 2008 election. The Republican brand is damaged and for the first time in forever the Democratic money is raking in more money from the corporists than the Republicans.

The Democratic party, against all odds, finally got their act together and started organizing the youth and minority vote on the levels of the religious right--if the DEMONRAT party's gamble pays off this year then this will pretty much kill the long-term advantage of the RR.

Right now, the RR need the corporate wing moreso than the other way around since they intentionally pursue a divisive agenda. If the RR decided to hijack the party, they would just go to the democrats.

[Neeeek]

Right now, the RR need the corporate wing moreso than the other way around since they intentionally pursue a divisive agenda. If the RR decided to hijack the party, they would just go to the democrats.

In my experience, anti-tax/economic conservative Republicans outright despise the religious right. It's a combination of thinking they are incredibly stupid and thinking that the RR's social agenda is varies between sort of dickish (see: gay rights) and just plain dangerous (see: abortion).

The only reason this election is as close as it is (and Obama is likely to win by about 4 or 5 percent by popular vote, with about 330 electorals) is John McCain is the GOP's nominee. It's not just that the various factions of the GOP hated all the other candidates - they hate McCain too, and all of the various factions dislike McCain. It's McCain is the one Republican with a reputation for not toeing the party line, so unlike the rest of the options, he gets a significant amount of votes from outside his own party.

I'm not sure about your time table though. I think that they'll last until 2012. The midterms are House and Senate races, and those individuals can not back the party wherever they want. And if Obama wins, he's likely to win by a lot more next time, as the current 14-17 year old group favors him more than any demo currently voting, from what I've heard.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm not sure about your time table though. I think that they'll last until 2012. The midterms are House and Senate races, and those individuals can not back the party wherever they want. And if Obama wins, he's likely to win by a lot more next time, as the current 14-17 year old group favors him more than any demo currently voting, from what I've heard.

There are more vulnerable Republican seats in 2010 than in 2008. If the 2010 elections were held today with the current level of support the GOP enjoys, it'd be a rout on the level of FDR. I mean, right now people are discussing possibilities of a filibuster-proof Senate. If the numbers transposed over to 2010, it'd be a definite possibility.

As long as Obama or the Democrats don't fuck anything up or get a nasty surprise dropped on them then Obama should go into the 2012 election with huge Democratic majorities.

Of course, Bill Clinton got completely blindsided by the GOP in 1994 after having a few political disasters and was stuck playing defense his entire presidency, despite steadily gaining strength since then. So who knows. Obama might be caught with Obama's penis jammed up his ass through a hole in his American flag diaper.

The Democratic party are a bunch of pussies so never underestimate their ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Crissa]

Unfortunately, Neeek, McCain has done nothing but toe the Party line the last four years and especially this campaign.

So the die-hards who were with him in 2000 aren't there this year or are in hands off mode.

This is totally an election of the dumb and the religious - whether their god is guns or Christ, they're there.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm also hoping that once things settle down, we'll be able to publish Hillary Clinton's original health care plan she proposed into the primary.

And the DNC replaces fuckin' Reid with her. We need a real knife-fighter there and she's proven herself. Wouldn't that he nice?

Unfortunately, with the GOP fucking up everything we might have to settle for Obama's stripped-down version. Sigh.

[Neeeek]

Unfortunately, Neeek, McCain has done nothing but toe the Party line the last four years and especially this campaign.

Oh, sure. He's just got a reputation for bucking the party. I didn't mean to imply it was deserved.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The thing we really have to watch out for is that when the corporists abandon the sinking Republican ship that they might try to latch onto the Democratic party.

That will completely fuck up this country if this happens--look what happened to the GOP and the US when they got ahold of those fuckers. Fortunately, Howard Dean and Barack Obama are setting things up so that we don't have to rely on them to win elections. The Republicans are getting absolutely destroyed this election cycle in fundraising. Part of it is because of big business abandoning the GOP, but most of it is a grassroots efforts unseen until now.

So watch the fuck out for the plutocrats to start looking for an ass to jam into. The Republican party is going down permanently in 15-20 years; the demographics are just plain against the religious right. By 2028 Virginia, Arizona, and North Carolina will probably be permanent Democratic strongholds. They're not going to stick out with a permanent loser party so hold on to your asses.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Take TV ad spending, for example:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/1 ... 186/631381

That's the future of American politics right now. Do you think that the corporate wing doesn't want a piece of that?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

The interesting thing is that, while Obama is getting most of his money from small donors, the Democratic Party is still kissing up to the fat cats. This makes Obama's decision to forgo public financing really interesting. If you read the table Lago linked, the DNC's ad spending is negligible compared to that of the Obama campaign, while the RNC is providing a lot of ads for McCain. So Obama is in no way beholden to his party for helping him get elected. That gives him more independence to enact a reform agenda, though he still has to deal with congressional leaders who have been reviving the party's legislative fortunes through large corporate soft money donations.

It'll be interesting to watch the evolution of the Republican Party the next few years. It seems to me that conservatism is now where liberalism was in the early 70s. At that time, the Democratic Party was in the hands of its farthest left faction, which was unpalatable to the middle of the American electorate. Moreover, liberals seemed to be quoting boilerplate from Das Kapital or a sociology textbook instead of examining the real world. Today, the situation has flipped. It's liberals/Democrats who seem to understand the real world, while Republicans quote boilerplate from The Wealth of Nations or an economics textbook. I think conservatives' real fear about an Obama presidency is that Obama will do for liberalism what Reagan did for conservatism.

[Lago PARANOIA]

It'll be interesting to watch the evolution of the Republican Party the next few years. It seems to me that conservatism is now where liberalism was in the early 70s. At that time, the Democratic Party was in the hands of its farthest left faction, which was unpalatable to the middle of the American electorate. Moreover, liberals seemed to be quoting boilerplate from Das Kapital or a sociology textbook instead of examining the real world. Today, the situation has flipped. It's liberals/Democrats who seem to understand the real world, while Republicans quote boilerplate from The Wealth of Nations or an economics textbook. I think conservatives' real fear about an Obama presidency is that Obama will do for liberalism what Reagan did for conservatism.

Obama isn't a liberal/progressive, though. At least not an economic one, which is what really counts right now.

He might end up being a Lyndon Johnson after all and push through some crazy progressive agenda out of nowhere. But I doubt it.

[Prak]

1) Repeal The Estate Tax
2) Privatise Health Care
3) PREVENT Compensation of victims of Asbestos

ok, call me an idiot if you must, but how are the first two evil and why would christians care about asbestos?

[IGTN]

The estate tax only affected rich people (the first something really large, hundreds of thousands to millions, I think, didn't count at all toward it. Essentially it was a tax to make it harder to pass enough money on to your children to make sure that they would be able to continue their lifestyle without working a day in their life, and make maintaining a permanent aristocracy harder.

Private health care is more expensive than socialized, works doctors harder, doesn't give better results for most of the people who do benefit from it, and keeps large numbers of people from getting health care.

Christians don't care about Asbestos. (Former) Asbestos manufacturers do. The people we're talking about aren't working for their beliefs, they're doing what their told without thought.

[Prak]

The estate tax only affected rich people (the first something really large, hundreds of thousands to millions, I think, didn't count at all toward it. Essentially it was a tax to make it harder to pass enough money on to your children to make sure that they would be able to continue their lifestyle without working a day in their life, and make maintaining a permanent aristocracy harder.

It also fucks over middle class people, exhibit A: My family when my great grandfather died, after Tax, funeral, etc, there was maybe a couplw thousand left... maybe.

Private health care is more expensive than socialized, works doctors harder, doesn't give better results for most of the people who do benefit from it, and keeps large numbers of people from getting health care.

K, now I understand.

Christians don't care about Asbestos. (Former) Asbestos manufacturers do. The people we're talking about aren't working for their beliefs, they're doing what their told without thought.

what I figured.

thanks.

[PhoneLobster]

1) Repeal The Estate Tax
2) Privatise Health Care
3) PREVENT Compensation of victims of Asbestos

ok, call me an idiot if you must, but how are the first two evil and why would christians care about asbestos?

You're an idiot. Hah! That's always fun.

Anyway.

1) Estate tax is basically just very basic wealth redistribution, to hate on it is to hate on ALL tax, and if you are in that camp you aren't exactly a "for the good of your fellow man" type of super good ultra pure Christian.

It is campaigned against almost exclusively by and for the the very rich. Most people just plain don't care and estate tax is over all a good thing for the majority of society.

2) Private health care is pure evil. We know that for many reasons. Mostly because its a bunch of lies that don't work. But lets take private health at face value for a second. If you have ENOUGH money you get to be healthy, or at least healthier than poor people who either man up and earn more or suffer and DIE. That's not very Christian (and certainly not "good" or nice). In fact like I said, it's pretty damn evil.

3) Asbestosis is basically untreatable (last I heard), very expensive and incredibly painful and crippling and ultimately very fatal. A bunch of companies made lots and lots of money of asbestos while KNOWING they were giving asbestosis to their clients, employees, and random people everywhere. Now they don't want to pay anything to help out the few sick and dying who haven't died already by now.

That also is remarkably evil, unchristian and outright foot soldier of evil Scrooge right there.


Mind you "unchristian" and the whole "they carp on about being good and pure, moral and Christian so that doesn't gel with evil act X" involves really generously taking them at their word about Christians being some sort of force for good to start with, but there is certainly hypocrisy and ignorance there.

[Crissa]

Prak, it's almost impossible for the Estate tax to hit you if you're middle class. By definition, it doesn't trigger for the first million. Your house you lived in is exempt. A large amount in gifts given is exempt.

Wikipedia[/url]]Although the above tax table looks like a system of progressive tax rates, there is a unified credit against the tentative tax which effectively eliminates any tax on the first $2,000,000 of the estate (or the first $2,000,000 on a combination of taxable gifts during lifetime and a taxable estate at death), so the federal estate tax is effectively a flat tax of 45% once the unified credit exclusion amount has been exhausted.
...
If the estate includes property that was inherited from someone else within the preceding 10 years, and there was estate tax paid on that property, there may also be a credit for property previously taxed.
Before 2005, there was also a credit for non-federal estate taxes.

Not mentioned it the exemption for farms, small businesses, etc.

-Crissa