The Religious Right and Contemporary American Politics

thomas

What descriptor meets your fancy?

Why not call them "blood suckers"? I already admitted my liking for Lola's name-finding creativity. I'm sure she'll find something

DeLay, Rove, and Bush are smart enough to know that the country won't accept what they really desire if they present it right up front.

Facism doesn't happen overnight; you have to give them some time...

Cycloptichorn

I liked george's contribution to the labeling effort. And we can add Thomas' as well. Hor$esh!t bad guys. How does that ring? Blood sucking is a good one. But "Bloodsucking, fascist bad guys ..........nah, too long takes too long to type it.

I agree with Blatham and Cy, it takes some time. We'll see.......hopefully those of us who are hooked up with watch dog groups now, thanks to the election, will block it's progress. But we really have to get these guys out of office. And 2006 is a long two years away.

thomas

Yes, no sense commiting yourself to uses of language that may embarrass you later. Being wrong is the worst of all possible eventualities.

Son of Sam is not nearly as bad as Satan, so go home and relax folks. No need to bolt your doors. This is America where the sunday afternoons are always sunny and the swimming hole ripples calm and unpolluted.

Not every Sunday, but most. Now it is a swimming pool, and as long as you remember to extend the cover at night it is OK too.

Why cover it when you can turn on the heater? Come on in y'all, the water's all warm and soothing.

I'll get back to you later, george........right now I have to go to the gym. Body first, mind later.

Yes, yes, yes georgeob, it is about differences in values. The values of the fanatics are rarely those of more open minded types. And the values of the New Right are diametrically opposed to my values. I'm not a fanatic, I'm just an informed person who is worried about the level of organization they have been able to establish before anyone has noticed.

I think some in the electorate are becoming aware of the New Right's activities and sooner or later the sane voters will come to recognize the danger they pose. It's my goal to speed that recognition along the best I can. When a large enough component of the voters finally recognize it, I'm hopeful they will deal with them at the polls........if (and maybe even though) the states haven't all been gerrymandered (as in Texas and Colorado). However, it may well be too late for the Supreme Court. If the New Right has it's way there, and they do intend to push it hard this time, it will take another 50 years to recover.

I agree with you Thomas, the internal checks and balances of our system of government may temper the damage some. I'm surely hoping so. But the checks and balance function that is built into our governmental system is already strained now. If support from the electorate doesn't back it up, then we're all in for a nightmare.

And, true enough, there may be an evolving compromise over time.........but I can't see what it would be. If laws pertaining to abortion, for example, become the right of the states, we'll see some states making abortion illegal and that means disaster for the poor and young women of those states.

It's easy to say, "well, you know, it's nature's way." But nature's way is harsh and unnecessarily cruel.

And btw, Thomas, the extremists behind the New Right are not too different from the KKK in many ways. They definitely discriminate against women. (Women submit to your husbands) And they are manipulative and destructive to their children and to anyone who is different from themselves.

They produce children who are either rebels and some psychopathically so, or automatons. Their families are based on the most harsh interpretation of the rule of biblical law rather than on the value of teaching children how to make decisions based on the internal development of personal moral values.

A person is limited when that person depends on imposed or adopted values, externally given and enforced. When the pressure from reality is strong, as it will be many times in a person's life, external controls are not dependable in helping that person maintain fair conduct or in helping that person make tough and sometimes very complicated decisions.

And racial prejudice abounds, with these fanatical Christians, even though couched in "loving" terms. I'm not talking about people who like to use rules as a back up, as a rule of thumb, I'm talking about the fanatics who believe all there is to depend on is absolute rules, period, as if life presents only simple easy challenges. In many of these homes, you'd be amazed what goes on. Many of their children make it.........those strong enough to resist and make it out into the larger world.......but many do not.

Of course, george, I'm not claiming that only fanatical Christians have fu*ked up kids. Fanatics of any kind share these same characteristics. But it is an established subculture, built on intimidation and coercion. It's a top down power structure and those at the top are largely male, although if the women support the men in their authority, they are allowed a voice, especially if it helps them look as if they're concerned about the rights of others. The sub-culture is anti-intellectual and dogmatic.

All this wouldn't be such a concern to me.....even though I hate to see it, and I see plenty of it, if that was all. What I'm worked up about is that they are now in a position to impose these same tactics and absolute standards on the American people.

It's fool hardy, I think, to say, "oh well, there aren't enough of them......they'll be so extreme the system will take care of them," when the system is already under attack and quivering. I hope the extreme New Right will be stopped by the American voters before the damage is too great.

Now there's a start.

it's the best start I can imagine......silly man!

When people try to ban stem cell research, discriminate against homosexuals, and invade non-threatening nations because Ganesh said it must be so, I'll attack Hinduism.

Now let's not talk bad about Ganish.........my daughters love him. And he makes an excellent book end.

Everybody in this thread needs to read this article; it fits the discussion like a sock. A 100% cotton sock that was accidentally washed in hot water and put in the regular cycle on the drying machine.

Or something.

And, yes, I know Lapham's writing is prodigious and loquacious, but it's also delightfully witty. Read it ot I'll cut you.



Believe that, yo.

Exactly

What a load of horseshit ! All bombast and no substance, unless you are inclined to believe that all non-Democrats in the country are organized in a 'vast right-wing conspiracy'. (come to think of it, who said that?)

Did he leave anything out? Even threw is some standard slurs about the Bohemian Club summer encampment, and suggestions that Milton Friedman was the paid economic hack of the evil Coors family fortune or something of that ilk.

It is a long (and tedious) article with lots and lots of specific references and anecdotes. In every one in which I have some direct knowledge it was evident that the author not only has his facts wrong, but also misses the truth of what he describes.

Nowhere does he acknowledge that a similar tissue of deception could just as easily be woven out of analogous unrelated elements on the liberal side. He even throws in a few snide references to Joe McCarthy, while, at the same time, outdoing the dyspepsic Senator in his own conspiracy fantasies.

It takes a small mind to buy this stuff, but sadly there are a few of them out there.

ILZ

Thanks. I read this Lapham piece a month ago, and the history he lays out is echoed by the research of a lot of other journalists as well.

george

There is little or no reason why we ought to grant your protest any credence at all, and here's why.

It counters specifics by not countering specifics.

On another thread you admit to watching almost no TV. From my own discussions with you, I'm acutely aware of how little contemporary political analysis you bother to read. It's unclear whether you even read a daily newspaper, or just what political information you turn to, if any.

I find it interesting that Mr. Lapham describes in 7000 words a movement he clearly perceives as a bunch of fundamentalist fanatics, without ever providing arguments why the conservatives are wrong on the issues, and the "basic American consensus" of 1960 was right on the issues. Or, perhaps more approporiate for someone who despises absolutes, why the liberals of 1960 were closer to being correct about the issues than the conservatives of 2000.

What is this telling us?

Oh, and PS:


He appears to have read the article that was posted here. Is it his fault that, like me, he found no political analysis in there?