Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence

snip

The Christian Right has shown impressive resilience and has rebounded dramatically after a series of embarrassing televangelist scandals of the late 1980s, the collapse of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and the failed presidential bid of Pat Robertson. In the 1990s, Christian Right organizing went to the grassroots and exerted wide influence in American politics across the country.
There is no doubt that Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition gets much of the credit for this successful strategic shift to the local level. But another largely overlooked reason for the persistent success of the Christian Right is a theological shift since the 1960s. The catalyst for the shift is Christian Reconstructionism--arguably the driving ideology of the Christian Right in the 1990s.

The significance of the Reconstructionist movement is not its numbers, but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly rapid acceptance. Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold Reconstructionist ideas. Because as a theology it is controversial, even among evangelicals, many who are consciously influenced by it avoid the label. This furtiveness is not, however, as significant as the potency of the ideology itself. Generally, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of "Biblical Law." Reconstructionism would eliminate not only democracy but many of its manifestations, such as labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools. Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality.

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http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/chrisre1.html

. . . it seems they never run out of gaffes, which then set them back to ground zero again. Nowadays I view them as a constant agitator.

you could be pissing off God. I would think twice before posting something like this. America has been, and always should be, a country guided by principles outlined in the old testament!

<sarcasm off>

Jesus, that was difficult to write.

The Handmaidens Tale. The fundies are dangerous. Big time.

(Canadian Bacon). What's the point in him attempting a remake only 15 years after the first film of it? He should stick to documentaries, which he's obviously good at.

I was re-watching the Indiana Jones -Raiders of the Lost Ark with my grandson the other night and noted a credit second set director-Micheal Moore. Do you know if this is the same Moore of fame of late?

that Michael Moore is a Canadian, who was also a child actor in silent movies (born 1914).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0601077/

faye dunaway, robert duval..??

We just had our District Conference, and a woman from a conservative congregation was going on and on during one small group session about how upset she is by all the liberal congregations in the District. Rather than shut her down or tune her out (which are both really attractive but counterproductive alternatives), friends of mine engaged her complaints.

Why did she feel frustrated? Did it really matter to her personal faith journey what was going on in other congregations? Was there any common ground between her and the other congregations? Are the differences between herself and others so profound that there can be no comity on what they both agree on?

I don't know if it helped, but at least her concerns were heard. And, since her congregation is still a member of the District, if she wants change to happen, she has a framework for making it happen, and she's going to have to be engaged with everyone else.

Some people say the Christian Theocrats are not dangerous, if you hear it, it is a lie. Look at the Iraq war, they had a hand in supporting it and really even treating it like it was a great thing. Look at their stooge, George W. Bush, we all know he is dangerous and evil. And, they had also supported Dictators and during the Cold War, they even supported the group that later became Al Qaeda.

The Threat of the Christian Right - It's a great article by the ingenious Sara Diamond who is an excellent voice on the dangers of the Christian Right.

another fun bunch!

http://www.politicalamazon.com/cr.html

Howard Ahmason, Sr.

Died: 1968

Savings and loan mogul. Founder of Home Savings of America. The Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles is named for the Ahmanson family.

Location:

Great Mausoleum

Theonomic Reconstructionism:
One God, One Vote:

Theonomic Reconstructionism is a belief that the only true authority is God's, that allegiance to biblical laws trumps that of civic law and that the Kingdom of Heaven needs to be built on Earth before Jesus will come again. In addition to that, homosexuals should be put to death, women should be banned from civic office, apostates and heretics should be stoned to death and there is a great need for more Christian politicians.

According to the Reconstructionists, Jesus would do what Howard Ahmanson did. Ahmanson inherited his money from his father, owner of Home Savings & Loan (during the S&L scandal of the Reagan years, Home's investors, mostly small family investments, lost over $150 million dollars. No one went to jail). In addition to funding PACs and think tanks, Howard Jr. parlayed his fortune into the majority stock of a business called American Information Systems (AIS) started by two enterprising brothers, Todd and Bob Urosevich. AIS later merged with Business Records Corporation (BRC) and became Election Systems & Solutions (ES&S). ES&S is the number one provider of touch-screen voting machines. Their website claims that their products were used in collecting 56% of the national vote in the last presidential elections.

Todd Urosevich is now Vice President of ES&S. Strangely enough, brother Bob moved on to head the second largest computerized vote-counting business, Global Election Systems, recently purchased by ATM and security giant Diebold. (They now have both the Ohio and Georgia contracts.) In a round table swap of incestuous patronage the previous executives of Global moved on to head the third largest vote-counting company in the nation, Advanced Voting Systems. Combined, these three corporations will process nearly 80% of the next nationwide elections.

http://www.tabletnewspaper.com/politics/73_tftgk.html

be afraid be very afraid :scared:

Money: Howard Ahmanson Jr.

"The Episcopal Church split is only a small part of Ahmanson's concerted efforts to radically transform not only American religion, but the nation's moral culture and, thereby, the country itself. His money has made possible some of the most pivotal conservative movements in America's recent history, including the 1994 GOP takeover of the California Assembly, a ban on gay marriage and affirmative action in California, and the mounting nationwide campaign to prove Darwin wrong about evolution. His financial influence also helped propel the recent campaign to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. And besides contributing cash to George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, Ahmanson has played an important role in driving Bush's domestic agenda by financing the career of Marvin Olasky, a conservative intellectual whose ideas inspired the creation of the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

After more than 20 years of politically oriented philanthropy, Ahmanson is now emerging as one of the major financial angels of the right, putting him in the company of Richard Mellon Scaife, the oil and banking heir who bankrolled the groundwork for much of the conservative movement's apparatus and became a household name in the 1990s thanks to his $2.4 million dirty-tricks campaign against President Bill Clinton." (Max Blumenthal, salon.com 1/6/04 - read complete article).

Quotes

"My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives. (Orange County Register, 1985)

Links
Three New Testament Roots of Economic Liberty, by Howard Ahmanson, Religion & Liberty 1997
Ahmanson makes the biblical argument for no minimum wage, no right to healthcare, and no requirement for compassion towards the poor - good thing god made him a wealthy man (he inherited $300,000,000 from his dad at age 18)!

http://www.joelp.com/americanfundamentalists/cast/ahmanson.html

Home Savings buildings, 2600 Wilshire,

An example of "Italian Fascist architecture,"

until you've checked out their connexions and "assets." :scared:

These fuckers are crazy and they mean business. They have their tentacles in everything.

We need to watch them like hawks.

http://www.bushflash.com/year.html WATCH THIS VIDEO only takes 3 minutes

Enveloped in a sentiment,
A sound that rushes over me.
Engage an impulse to pretend
I have a faith as pure.
Not forgetting what it means to dream.
Indulging everything.
Entertaining thoughts that I've the strength
Of those I yearn to be.
Cheers and tribute greet the saviours.
Reckless thoughts survive.
Anachronistic and impulsive.

And what will happen?
Will I dream?
I am too scared to close my eyes.
For a second please hold me.
None can change in me these things that I believe.
But I don't know what happens now.
I am too scared to close my eyes.

Legion
Vnv Nation

Especially the blasphemers.

"Look, all I said was, this piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!"

Seriously, though, those people scare the Piss out of me. Think they're fringe? You can draw pretty tight connections between Rushdoony and Dobson and Robertson and Bush. The kooks have the ear of the white house, and there's plenty of people pretty high up the GOP who think that criminalizing birth control, adultery, "fornication", etc. isn't such a bad idea, not a bad idea at all.

Hell, you've got a woman in Texas who went to jail for selling vibrators.

The crazy impulse to legislate and regulate and control people is everywhere, seemingly.

No, she got off.

Report to behind the arena for your PUN-ishment.

http://www.yuricareport.com/

Just let them try and mess with the women of America..remember the march on DC? we will kick their ass.