The Church of Bush

These are the people who, even in the face of evidence of his casual cruelty, of his unchristian contempt for weakness, of his lying ways, see something angelic in George W. Bush and love him unconditionally.




http://www.alternet.org/election04/19425/

The Church of Bush

By Rick Perlstein, Village Voice. Posted August 2, 2004.



Here are some things that Christopher Nunneley, a conservative activist in Birmingham, Alabama, believes. That some time in June, apparently unnoticed by the world media, George Bush negotiated an end to the civil war in Sudan. That Bill Clinton is "lazy" and Teresa Heinz Kerry is an "African colonialist." That "we don't do torture," and that the School of the Americas manuals showing we do were "just ancient U.S. disinformation designed to make the Soviets think that we didn't know how to do real interrogations."

Chris Nunneley also believes something crazy: that George W. Bush is a nice guy.

It's a rather different conclusion than many liberals would make. When we think of Bush's character, we're likely to focus on the administration's proposed budget cuts for veterans, the children indefinitely detained at Abu Ghraib, maybe the story of how the young lad Bush loaded up live frogs with firecrackers in order to watch them explode.

Conservatives see it differently.

"He's very compassionate," says Chris, an intelligent man who's open-minded enough to make listening to liberals a sort of hobby. "If you look at the way he's bucked the far right: I mean, $15 billion for AIDS in Africa!" He speaks at the church services of blacks, and "you don't fake that. That's not just a photo op."
..more..

'news'.

The level of misinformation is staggering.

Also, the zealotry of these fundies who think that Bush is ordained by god is very disturbing to me. :scared:

Republican = "Good Christian"

Democrat/Liberal = "Godless Commie"

Plus, extremely conservative churches tend to preach blind obedience.

Religion, for some people, takes away the burden of thinking for yourself, the man at the pulpit tells you what to believe. (My MIL's church is an example of this, during the last election preaching on a Sunday about how wonderful it would be to elect W and how evil it would be to elect Gore).

Being a republican currently also removes the burden of thought, you just listen to the talking points and do what you are told.

Sad, isn't it.

because the truth is just too scary to face - that a leader who calls himself a Christian may not be.

Problem is, when they hold him up as perfect, they already break the 1st of the 10 Commandments, about not having any other gods. They've set up RW conservatism and the USA as their god who could never do wrong, never deceive, never harm anyone needlessly. They aren't mature enough to see beyond a black & white world, and most importantly, they have been overcome by fear since 9/11. And that fear is manipulated by the RW all the time.

Just my $.02.

(I thought the first one didn't go through)

Wasn't infallible and was written by humans. Our teacher flat out said that since it was written by people it was subject to their biases and that whatever people (fundies) think, the book of Revelation was about Nero, and it is arrogant to keep applying it to whatever century we live in. I go to a Lutheran school by the way and boy were some people SEETHING.
I remember freshman year discussing evolution. Once person lent me a book about how there is NO evidence for evolution (tried to read it, couldn't without going to the point of vein popping out of forehead) the other guy said that dinosaurs and things were planted to fool the unbelievers.
I don't get fundies. I don't know a hell of a lot about religion, I know very little. However I don't get them. For CHRISTIANS they sure as hell quote the Old Testament a lot, and only the parts that suit them. The book of Hosea is OT and it shows a very loving forgiving God. I just don't get it. I don't understand how Jesus' mseeage of inclusion could get so so warped.

in these folks. To me the most important lesson from this article is that it is a complete waste of time and energy to attempt to "get through" to people like this. If Jesus came back not even he would have a chance with them.

So it makes a lot more sense to attempt to reach the people who are not registered, uninvolved, apathetic etc.
Not that this isn't extremely difficult.
But these particular fundie types are completely unreachable.

are we sure they haven't been putting something in the water?

:crazy:

"Mainstream Conservatism," is way the hell out of the ballpark than any serious liberal movement in this nation has EVER been.

What conservatives can never admit to is that they're "ideology" doesn't really adhere to the things they think it adheres to. Huge deficit spending, Christian reconstruction, indoctrination and engineering, "tinkering" with the Consitution, laws against prostitution & drug possession, the FCC crackdown on television, militarization, corporate welfare and subsidy, pre-emption as foreign policy, and even the national law enforcement agencies go against the classical liberalism that they pretend to represent.

What isn't "big federal government" about all of this?

Their attempts to shut out the claim for governance for the left, under the guise of "they're big governemnt, we're not," is disengenous to our foundations and our liberties.

It is exactly what Perlstein referred to when he said something to the effect of "ideologies stacked on a tooth-pick foundation." GOP ideology is a mish-mash of Libertarian philosophy, combined ever-so-oddly with Christian Reconstruction -- a "Rand finds God," philosophy, that I'm pretty sure was the creation of Milton Freidman, and it rests on fundamentally contradictory philosophies.

These people have contempt for the Bill of Rights, and the judiciary in general, and are actively trying to strip the judiciary of its power, and make, particularly religious issues, subject to a majority vote, instead of the super-majority needed to pass a constitutional amendment, or let the laws stand up to a Constitutional test -- effectively rendering useless a couple of centuries of precedent, in YES, an effor to establish Christianity as an official religion.

I don't understand the Bush-love at all -- as I don't understand the Bush hate, sometimes. For me, I'm not voting against Bush, so much as I'm voting against extreme right-wing ideology and FOR the Constitution. What's sick isn't just Bush, but the whole GOP.