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muriel_volestrangler

(101,333 posts)
Sat Mar 10, 2012, 06:46 AM Mar 2012

Adam Curtis: Who Would God Vote For?

The final straw came when President Carter abolished the charity status for the fundamentalist religious schools. This really hurt because they thought Carter, an evangelical, was one of them. But Carter was of the old school - he believed that religion should be separate from politics.

So in May 1979 Paul Weyrich and four other young activists drove to the Holiday Inn in Lynchburg Virginia to meet one of the most powerful evangelical pastors in America, Jerry Falwell. Like a number of other pastors, Falwell had his own television network and millions of followers. What happened at that meeting would shatter the pietism of millions of fundamentalist Christians and bring them - and their beliefs - into the heart of American politics.
...
Back in 1963 Khomeini was just another conservative cleric living in the City of Qom, but then the Shah launched the White Revolution which was supposed to modernise Iran. Khomeini was horrified because the programme was going to emancipate women, swear in elected officials on any holy book - not necessarily the Koran, and worst of all it threatened to take away the clergy's very large landholdings.
...
For Khomeini this was the key - and in 1970 he gave a series of lectures that took Shariati's attempt to fuse revolutionary Marxism and Islam and used them to portray a new vision of Shia Islam. Your duty, Khomeini said, was no longer to remain passive but to seize power and drive out the wicked and corrupt ruler. It was an extraordinary move, because Khomeini was exploding one of the fundamental ideas of his religion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2012/03/who_would_god_vote_for.html


Adam Curtis (The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, etc.) is always worth reading/watching, but when he notes how similar Falwell and Khomeini were, the idea of freeper heads exploding is hilarious. Sample quote from Falwell in one of the clips:

This program today is not political. It's totally based on the importance, the sanctity, of religious freedom in the United States of America.

...and publish now this booklet entitled "Declassified Material". It's a briefing on why we oppose an immediate nuclear freeze. ... It's information that every American ought to have. Every pastor ought to have. Every Sunday School teacher ought to have.


How much more political can you get than trying to get Sunday School teachers to support a nuclear arms race?

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Adam Curtis: Who Would God Vote For? (Original Post) muriel_volestrangler Mar 2012 OP
Wow! longship Mar 2012 #1
right on... literally oldhippydude Mar 2012 #2

longship

(40,416 posts)
1. Wow!
Sat Mar 10, 2012, 08:19 AM
Mar 2012

Seems well researched. I remember things basically the way it's portrayed in the article.

Mr. Curtis is right in bringing this up now. I can't think of a time when it's more important to oppose these totally insane theocratic Republicans (the only name we should use for them). They are a real danger to democracy and the freedoms we hold dear.

To some this will appear to be hyperbole, but just listen to them: "This is a Christian country." Indeed! That's what they want.

oldhippydude

(2,514 posts)
2. right on... literally
Sat Mar 10, 2012, 09:39 AM
Mar 2012

brings back old memories, as well as fills in some the blanks... this is the first time time i have seen Ollie North portrayed, in this manner... well worth the read, i have it bookmarked so i can come back later for the videos..

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