(I will be returning to writing primarily about American Indian History and its related issues after this diary. Also, this is very long; so get some coffee if you need to or make a pot. It’s long.)
I had the extremely displeasurable experience of playing in an evangelical church after Hurricane Katrina. “This is Spiritual Warfare,” “Homosexuality is an abomination,” and “There is evil in the earth” were spewed like venom.
I got sick and tired of being screamed at, so I grabbed a pencil and some paper and wrote a poem instead of listening to all the hate. I tried to imagine what Jesus might feel like if he really did “come back,” what he might say now, and how he might feel. First though, let’s look at “Hagee, Iran, and ‘Theocratic Automatic Fascism'” after putting Apocalyptic Christianity into a historical perspective.
Crossposted at Progressive Historians
From the moment of its birth Christianity had envisioned the end of the world. Saints and theologians differed on many details about the end, but few disagreements were as intense as those concerned with the nature and timing of the events involved. There were those who believed that as the end drew near conditions on earth would grow progressively dire, evil would increase, love would diminish, the final tribulations would be unleashed-and then suddenly the Son of Man would appear: he would overcome Satan, judge mankind, and bring an end to history. Others had what is generally thought to be a more optimistic view: before reaching the final grand conclusion, they claimed, there would be a long reign of peace, justice, abundance, and bliss; the Jews would be converted, while the heathens would be either converted or annihilated; and, in certain versions of the prophecy, this Messianic Age of Gold would be ushered in by a Last World Emperor-a human saviour-who would prepare the way for the final cataclysmic but glorious struggle between Good and Evil, whereupon history would end with the triumphant Second Coming.
Trail Of Tears: Moving Beyond The Myth Of America
So before the poem starts, and while the apocalyptic Christians are looking forward to the possible coming strike on Iran…
…with glee – they should read these words first.
(Matthew 23:15):
Woe to you,—You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when one becomes one, you make him twice the son of hell as you are.
I said it once and I am saying it twice, Send Hagee To Hell: Don’t Let Bush Bomb Iran!
Hagee and his blind flock want human beings to be eliminated, because they are convinced they are being motivated by Satan. Think about it.
John Hagee:
Christian Zionists lobby for US attack on IranAnd the liberal agenda is they are pro-abortion. They’re pro-homosexual. They’re pro-gay marriage – they want men to marry men and women to marry women – and their difference with me is not really what I’m doing with Israel. Their hostility to me is poisoned by their liberalism.
They take a liberal position that poisons their view of what we could be doing for Israel.
Are there more generalized demonizations of liberals within the genre of fundamentalist Christianity?
I believe Satan is behind all liberal movements.
Liberal Democrat’s Satanic Overlord
These liberals, from Nancy Pelosi’s home, consider morality and religion dangerous. They openly protest and fight against efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and suicide.
snip-
Who but Satan could run a city and a political party that fights against morality, and specifically considers efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and suicide “fascist” and dangerous?
Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America’s swashbuckling neocons
“A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralize the country,” she says. “Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that’s what you’ll get.”
She squints at the sun and smiles. “Then things’ll change.”
‘The Surge Won’t Work, But Concentration Camps Might Do The Trick’
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war â?” to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals.
Read these two excerpts and draw your own conclusions, remembering thatNazi War Criminals came to the U.S. after WWII.Temporarily, substitute the word “Liberal” for the word “Jew” in an effort to draw correlations from past to present. To accentuate, I mean temporarily. These are amongst the most evil words ever spoken. They are from the time of the Jewish Holocaust. Mussolini’s “Doctrine of Fascism” is included afterwards. If the rhetoric of now weren’t so comparable to the rhetoric of then and even glorifying it, then I wouldn’t think it would be appropriate. It is appropriate to today on American soil in a comparison of the rhetoric only.
There are instances, such as the Rwandan Genocide, in which it is completely comparable. I can’t accentuate enough the spirit of respect and appropriate context in which it must be compared.
Continuing, Hagee himself has implied that it is not “Jews” (“The apple of God’s eye,” he said) who are “poisoned,” it is “liberals” who are “poisoned.” Hagee and those like him are against the ideas of liberalism, and have demonized people with liberal philosophies. The Jewish people overall, he and his blind flock believes, need to be “saved” now, but will be redeemed later. Brace yourself as you read “The Decent Jew” by the Nazi Hanns Oberlindober from the year 1937and the “Doctrine of Fascism” by Mussolini himself from the year 1932.
Kingdom Coming:
The Rise of Christian Nationalism. Michelle Goldberg. p. 73“The Decent Jew.” By the Nazi Hanns Oberlindober. 1937.
To the following source:
The “Decent” Jew A Letter to an Englishman, 1937
Despite the sensitivity of the democrats to the world’s moaning and groaning, the warmongering incitement of the so-called world press and the agonized howls of those of your nature and religion, the National Socialist people’s and state leadership has only done its simple duty to the German people, namely to investigate and determine the results and consequences that the “good Germans” and “decent Jews” have left behind for the German people, and to ensure that there will never again be a time of unlimited or concealed Jewish domination.
I say Jewish domination intentionally, for there is no more dreadful tyranny than when world Jews enslave their host people through their willing, bribed, and obedient democratic lackeys.
I am not, repeat am not making any irresponsible predictions; however, a military attack on Iran might bring us closer to a fascist state, unique to our time and place, than we already are.
Two key past events that make me consider that we are already closer “to a fascist state, unique to our time and place” are the following.
The first is that a solider stated he would “shoot an American citizen” for “popping around the corner.” Not so much his specific comment, but the context in which he said it. The red flag to me is, which is what I’m building my argument for the phrase “Theocratic Automatic Fascism” on, is what would have happened to him if he had shot an American citizen? Do we know anything that would indicate to us an answer?
Yes, we do.
Police charged with murdering duo on bridge after Katrina
Seven police officers have been charged with murder and attempted murder for a shooting on a New Orleans bridge six days after Hurricane Katrina that killed two people and wounded four others.
Of course, they denied the charges, yet who knows. The officers could in fact be innocent, pending a full investigation. But, what would have been done about it in our justice system now? This brings me to tragic key event number two.
“Here is an excerpt of one of her last emails to her Mom.”
part 1-rachel corrie american conscience
No US senator attended Rachel’s funeral after her parents brought her home to the state of Washington. Both US senators ran in the opposite direction. Later the Corries disclosed that after their return to the US with their daughter’s body, they contacted their US Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats, and told them how their daughter had been deliberately murdered while peacefully demonstrating against house demolitions, which are violations of international law. Murray and Cantwell, the Corries recall, were quick with expressions of outrage and promises of investigations. The Corries never heard from Murray or Cantwell again.
Jerusalem Post Smears Rachel Corrie’s Memory
As we approach March 16, residents and citizens of the United States should ask themselves how it is that an unarmed U.S. citizen can be killed with impunity by a soldier from an allied nation receiving massive U.S. aid, using a product manufactured in the United States by a U.S. corporation and paid for with U.S. tax dollars. When three Americans were killed, presumably by Palestinians, in an explosion on Oct. 15, 2003, as they traveled through Gaza, the FBI came within 24 hours to investigate the deaths. After one year, neither the FBI nor any other U.S.-led team has done anything to investigate the death of an American killed by an Israeli.
Why the double standard? Perhaps this reveals the most disturbing truth of all.
John Hagee and all those trying to force the United States into becoming a “Christian Nation” are attributed to the first part of the phrase, “Theocratic Automatic Fascism” in my argument.
Theocracy.
A form of civil government in which God himself is recognized as the head. The laws of the commonwealth are the commandments of God, and they are promulgated and expounded by the accredited representatives of the invisible Deity, real or supposed-generally a priesthood. Thus in a theocracy civic duties and functions form a part of religion, implying the absorption of the State by the Church or at least the supremacy of the latter over the State.
To complete the explanation of “automatic,” one must understand the first context in which I use it.
look the other way
to ignore something wrong or unpleasant that you know is happening instead of trying to deal with it. When one of their own friends or colleagues is involved in wrongdoing, people sometimes prefer to look the other way.
And now for the final context: automatic (emphasis on “automatic” mine).
Denial
Denial is automatic
; it is not usually a matter of deliberate lying or willful deception. Most dependent people do not know what is true or false concerning their drinking or drug use and its consequences.
I’m not even going to mention the comparison of the above with oil. So…
In order to explain, excuse me while I write the longest sentence I ever have: When Jerry Falwell formed the “Moral Majority,” too many people “automatically” looked the other way; when racial profiling came more into public awareness after the Oklahoma City Bombing, too many people “automatically” looked the other way; when (same link as previous) “Despite promises by President George W. Bush shortly after his taking office to end racial profiling, the number of American ethnic, racial, and religious groups whose members are at high risk of being subjected to this scourge has increased substantially,” too many people “automatically” looked the other way; when the congress passed the Patriot Act under extreme duress and manipulation, too many people “automatically” looked the other way; when the Congress gave Bush the Military Commissions Act and they should have known better, too many people “automatically” looked the other way…I could go on, but when congress “automatically” looks the other way at the possible and definite deaths and death of it’s citizens by it’s own law enforcement and a foreign country, I think “Theocratic Automatic Fascism” might be an appropriate term in the future, if certain conditions are met. Stay tuned. Now, let’s be realistic in the worst case scenario – Bush declares a national state of emergency.
Everyone, including the American Indian tribes (just try to imagine all of the historical implications of American Indians being disarmed), are disarmed and relocated temporally. Simultaneously, the Clergy would use “Romans 13” to calm people down – maybe Clergy like… John Hagee.
What saves us, is that enough people in the positions of doing the disarming and relocating still remember what it was like before 9-11. Indeed, before the Oklahoma City Bombing. This no prediction, it is just hypothetical.
The line is crossed over to what I’m labeling “Theocratic Automatic Fascism” when there are more people in the positions of doing the disarming and relocating who do not
remember what it used to be like when we had habeas corpus, when desensitization to its loss is greater than the sensitization to its loss.
Continuing, my hypothetical scenario may occur or not occur about the time that we reach the tipping point.
Earth may be near global warming tipping point mongabay.com March 15, 2007
Earth could be reaching a tipping point that could trigger rapid climate change according to scientists studying declining sea ice in the Arctic.
In the face of Manifest Destiny, it seems to me we have two choices: we will either love or fear each other. I don’t think even God knows, to steal a phrase from Joseph Campbell, what choice we’ll make.
What we know from history that we can say with a degree of certainty is that when economic panic is combined with survival needs for natural energy sources; people will relocate, take away from, or kill whoever is in their way – coercively or overtly.
If and only if such hypothetical events occur and the following conditions are met on American soil –
The Anatomy of Fascism:
”A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
– would I conclude to use the phrase, “Theocratic Automatic Fascism,” or any phrase containing “fascism,” or the word itself.
Conclusion and Poem
I sat on my porch in the summer of 2006 smoking my pipe; I had educated myself about the overall Religious Right about as much as I could stand at the time. The thought I had then was and which has stuck with me is, “First they did it to us and now they’re doing it to you.” Had I known that genocide of Jewish People began centuries prior to genocide of American Indians as far as I know, I would have thought different. But my intent is, I don’t want it to happen.
The truth is, maybe it’s a ways off – but the roads and the railroads are being made and laid. However, after the tipping point it very well might be too late.
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
Again, I left my crystal ball at home.
By analogy, here is what I see the “roads” and “railroads” are, in addition to what has been stated.
Simultaneously: the war on the courts, the homeschooling movement, the infiltration into the military, the loss of habeas corpus, and the continued loss of civil liberties has accompanied theloss of land and mineral rights for American Indian tribes. Promises to uphold the Constitution of the United States are being broken and have been broken everywhere. We’re all in this together; furthermore, I really believe that we need each other.
The question seems to be, should be expect the unexpected, the expected, or the anticipated? It’s a cliché, but only time will tell. Either way,
If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
There’s a fire to put out.
The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism
Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School , told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”
The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.
– snip –
He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities that he said would, in the event of prolonged social instability or a national crisis, see American fascists, under the guise of religion, rise to dismantle the open society. He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil nor the cold reality of how the world worked?
The full illustrated version is in the comments here at Progressive Historians
“Thirteenth Moon Of The Lamb”
To John Hagee, the Patriarchy,
The K.K.K., &
Apocalyptic Christians:
“Blood from your limbs,
Sap of my trunk.
Crown taken from my cousin,
Tis yours as well.
Near your last hour,
Burning leaves now words –
Storm my breath.
Sit in my fork, O Lamb –
Thy coil hung by men’s fear…
Peer into centuries and cry blood.”
“A girl stares at a square.
Voices come from below the people,
My eyed are hers.
A man in strange robes
Accuses angels of his iniquities,
Declares war against the land.
Only plagues aren’t prejudiced –
Mirrors are invisible to bigotry
Fascists rape children of choice,
Quoting the traitor Paul over me.
Ghosts of dead churches
Whisper scripture to sucklings
Moaning lies about my sacrifice,
Teaching the sword —-
Not the cheek.
Fundamentalists are as fossils,
Unable to alter…
Except by erosion or destruction.
How much more life will perish
Before those fossils erode?
Who breaks their mold by the Word —
Not the sword?
My apostles failed,
Popes and Kings destroyed my teachings and deny them.
War beats in their hearts which loves the root of evil
— This do in remembrance of me
— This do in remembrance of me.”
Blood poured from the eyes of the lamb.
Fork to flesh,
The ghost of The Lamb crawled —
Grief grasped his spirit,
Going from the arm of the tree
To the wet chest of the cross…
3 comments
Author
Disturbing, insightful and appreciated. Sorry you experienced all that you did, but I’m grateful that you wrote about it. Thanks.
Has Robyn read this?