These people are dangerous. They are the same ones, to the man who advertised, offering a reward for anyone who could furnish evidence of Bill Clinton's dalliances. They spied, offered rewards, and connived until Linda what'shername finally scored. They are wealthy, powerful, narcissistically vulnerable people who can become quite bold in their attempt to shore up their defenses through the use of coercive tactics. And obviously they are not deterred by the will of the American voter. They have proven, in the Clinton impeachment, and in the 2000 election, that they don't reversing the will of the voter. It's very unpleasant for me. I grew up in this sub-culture. And if the people of this country don't wake up soon, it will no longer be a sub-culture, but rather the culture.
That reeks of propaganda! I guess the embedded journalists will be the next casuality.
In Touch Ministries is a real entity. Does anyone know anything about it. Who the people are behind it? I may be able to get some information on it, but not until tonight.
What does anyone know?
Yes, the enbedded journalist should watch his back too. I agree, Bill. I have been pulling my hair out since the Clinton fiasco, saying, "where is the press?" There were some articles about it in either Time or Newsweek at the time. But no journalist is running with it the way What'shisname (Dustin Hoffman, laugh) and Bernstein did with Water Gate.
I checked out In Touch Ministries on Google. They have an audio cassette titled, A Christian's Duty. They want $6.00 for it--I declined.
The fact that they have a cassette with the same title does give more credence to the pamphlet story on ABC News Online.
Dys,
Understated, yes.........I'm known as the President of the Understatement Club. Sorry. What I'd like to know is who is in charge of In Touch Ministries. All anyone has to do is follow the money. And don't call me "deep throat!" laugh
I was worried when Reagan got elected.
I was worried when Bush the elder got elected.
But at least both those guys were smart enough to keep a blanket on the rabble that would turn our country into a sewer.
Bush the younger just can't do it.
He a menace.
Someone's gotta do something about those damn fake Christians! I had a long phone conversation the other day -- with a Mennonite pastor who also decries and anguishes over the false Christianity which has gained such political power. I urged him to take a public stand. He won't. So we have the fake Christians up against the emasculated Christians. Coming to your television screen soon...
Great Dowd quotation Tartarin.
Does anyone need any more proof that we should never let a stupid man run for President?
Here is a link to Dr. Charles Stanley's biography page. In Touch Ministries is huge and powerful. I would love to know how much they contributed to GW's campaign.
http://www.intouch.org/inside/about_us/biography_76833.html.
The last paragraph of the bio follows:
The goal of Dr. Charles Stanley is best represented in In Touch's mission statement: To lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ and to strengthen the local church. Dr. Stanley's heart's desire is to get the Gospel to "as many people as possible, as clearly as possible, as irresistibly as possible, and as quickly as possible-all to God's glory."
Oh Diane,
That's the Institute for Christian Living. I can find out more about it, but can't right this minute. Will do so soon.
The link I posted before doesn't work. Here is one to the website for The Institute For Christian Living.
http://www.intouch.org/highlights/CSICL_expectations_37980729.html
BillW wrote:This is the sickness that is crossing the land............if true, it sucks
The military does not exist in individuality, it depends on orders. For the most part, this would be considered an order. If you were seen throwing away the phamplet, you would get laterine duty. There is not much difference in Saddam and Bush!
The article seems to quite clearly state that the pamphlets are NOT being supplied by the military, but by a private group. I also suspect that the pamphlets are being distributed on a voluntary basis to Christian soldiers, and that the author used the vague "thousands of marines" to hide this fact.
An interesting theory of Francois de Bernard.
Quote:
The New Nero
A new pathology is ravaging the city. It has taken control of the neurons of the empire. First it infected the emperor himself and then it was transmitted to his oligarchs. First it took control of the center and now it is shaking the peripheries, from north to south and from east to west. Now, at the height of its fury, the incredulity has given way to stupor.
This is the feeling that is giving rise to an unbearable and diffuse malaise among "experts" as well as among "ordinary citizens." This is an indisputable intuition, which has been persistently rejected because it is unacceptable.
How can we admit that we have returned to the worst hours of the Roman Empire, those that bear the tragic seal of Caligula and Nero? How is it possible now, in our day, when supposedly there is the most comprehensive application of "democracy" in the history of humanity, to accept the idea that the most "developed," wealthy and powerful nation in the world has a leadership that has come down with a devastating psychosis?
Indeed, everything is impelling us to minimize the gravity of this matter, insofar as possible. But the time has come for us to open our eyes. The time has come to forget the old idea - forged during the course of two centuries - of the United States as the bridgehead of the "free world" and "democracy."
The reality that we are trying to keep at a distance is that the United States has become a theocracy and a pathocracy. It has become a theocracy because nearly all the important decisions of President George W. Bush's administration are taken "in the name of God" - an angry and vengeful God, not a God of love and compassion - and because this system is not encountering any serious opposition on the part of the legislative and legal institutions, not to mention the media.
We are Democracy, by the will of our angry God, and our role is to promote it in His name and for His sake. The fact that this democracy has only a marginal and metaphorical connection to 2,5000 years of political tradition is of no importance. The self-definition and the self-justification are the two breasts of the empire. Just as the United Nations is a negligible factor that can be ignored when it opposes our plans, we were established in order to impose on the rest of the world the idea of democracy that corresponds only to our convictions.
For two years now - and increasingly since September 11, 2001, there has been a great deal of focus in the discourse on the subject of "good and evil" and the strategy derived from it with respect to the "axis of evil." This has generally been based on the return, in full force, of the primitive moralizing that runs through a large part of the political and intellectual history of the United States. But in fact, it is something of an entirely different nature. It is the brutal transformation of an oligarchic republic tinged with democracy into a republic that is essentially theocratic.
If we realize this, then it is possible to understand that everything becomes possible from the point of view of Bush's administration, from the rejection of the Kyoto treaty to the perpetuation of the death penalty, from the attempt to marginalize the UN to the approaching exit from the World Trade Organization, from the war in Afghanistan to the war in Iraq.
But the United States has also become a pathocracy, that is, a regime that is neurotic in essence, the leaders of which are, quite simply, psychopaths. I offer the hypothesis that the American president is personally suffering from a paranoid psychosis and that the quartet he has formed with Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld constitutes a government that is both theocratic and pathocratic.
Therefore we must not slip into the ordinary plaint that claims: "He's crazy, they're all crazy." It is necessary to understand the extent to which the new Emperor, his principal advisers and those who carry out his directives have brought the most disturbing pathology into the heart of the world empire.
In order to judge whether this is indeed the case, it is enough to read the full texts of the speeches that are published on the White House Internet site (whitehouse.gov) and the statements by the quartet on the State Department site. A study of the videotapes of the president's appearances is also recommended. These sources set forth a worldview that is intrinsically paranoid, imbued with visions of the most regressive Crusades, drenched in a frightening symbolism that sees any external opposition as evidence of crime and in which every decision and every action bear the seal of a vengeful divinity.
I recommend all citizens of the world judge for themselves. The time has come to move from vague intuitions to diagnosis. Sigmund Freud, who so appositely revealed president Woodrow Wilson's pathology - come back!
Francois de Bernard is a philosopher and writer. Among his recent works are "La Pauverte durable" (2002) and "Parthenia 2050" (2003). This article was originally published in Liberation on March 26.
Sounds to me that de Bernard is calling a spade a spade here.
Good for him.
Now...if the American public would just wake up from its stupor and get these renegades under control -- maybe we can get back on track.
frolic
As strongly or extremely stated as that piece is, I consider it to reflect the real states of affairs more correctly than the claim that this present administration is like any of its predecessors.
When the claim is advanced that the administration is behaving as if it wished to become a theocracy, shouts of protest fill the air. And it is the Christian Right shouting the loudest.
i've read in my newspaper today that the soldiers in the desert have to pray for the beloved W Bush because he is threatened by terror attacks. OMG! And does he think those guys in the desert are on a holiday?
frolic wrote:i've read in my newspaper today that the soldiers in the desert have to pray for the beloved W Bush because he is threatened by terror attacks. OMG! And does he think those guys in the desert are on a holiday?
I'm afraid you're late to that particular party. (Scan back up this discussion.)
