Letters to the Editor
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timbuktom - there is a differnce
which is really lost on alot of people between radicals and the mainstream.
Yes there are radical religious conservatives in this country who would like to see everyone not of their ilk removed from this country by any means necessary.
There are black nationalists who share similar goals.
Not to mention the Klan and certain members of MENSA who would also like to see people removed from their view.
The question isn't are there radicals. The question is are there more radicals than there were say twenty years ago, forty years ago, or sixty years ago.
You know there was a time in human history when actual open out there fascists marched in American city streets and drew a following.
America survived.
Though out darknesses and horrors our modern minds can barely comprehend, the great depression, World War I, the time of Robber Barons, and still America survived.
It’s good to keep an eye on radicals. I am certain the FBI has files on all these people and keep close tabs on them all.
Their threat however is to life and property not society.
This movement is not growing, it may seem more active, but that is mostly due to the modern ability to manufacture internet tigers that seem bigger than they are.
Right now, in America, we have nearly full employment, and a standard of living that is really incredible. There are poor people, but even they more often than not have sated if not full bellies due to our social services programs.
We are no where nearly as bad off as we were when fascism, communism, and dominionism were openly discussed political points of view.
Now we live in a highly secularized, highly wealthy, highly comfortable world, we are well educated as a society, even if not as educated as our peers in the industrialized world, and every factor the author lists as necessary for fascism to rise is either nonexistent or relatively negligible in this country.
Sure America could take a turn for the worse; also a comet could strike times square. Both possibilities are well within the range of probability of occurring in the near future, but there really are no signs on the horizon to mark either.
Peak oil and global warming are far more probable causes for worry in our society, and in the event of those doomsday scenarios coming to pass; Radical Christians will be but one sect vying for dominance.
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Follow the Money, Honey
The question isn't are there radicals. The question is are there more radicals than there were say twenty years ago, forty years ago, or sixty years ago.
GWP asks the wrong question in his "all radicals are equal, America will survive" notion. In 2003, "faith-based" programs received $1.17 billion in federal grants; and similarly, $40 billion was gleaned from federal agencies for state programs of religious nature (Washington Post, 4 January 2005). Bush only intensified that bankrolling drive by the government.
Consequently, it's a movement blown way out of proportion to their actual size by virtue of lavish spending and subsidizing by reactionaries pushing for a Christian Amerika. Were Christian fascists to rely solely on fleecing the faithful/fearful, they'd just be another blight among many, but they're a bankrolled movement, which makes them very visible and prominent compared to other wingnuts.
The problem predates the Bushies, going back to the mid-70s when the Heritage Foundation first reared its ugly head and set the whole extragovernmental approach the Right has used to compensate for its lack of actual popular support, through incestuous foundations that fund each other and bankroll ideologically acceptable (e.g., neofascist) movements.
The Right (Christian fascist or otherwise) will never speak for more than a third of the country, demographically -- they just don't have that reach, their ideas aren't appealing enough to the majority. In the marketplace of ideas, they have already failed -- if they hadn't, they wouldn't need foundations to prop them up.
But the additional funding they receive from the government gives them unfortunate cultural prominence. How many reactionary pundits do you want to name? Are there an equal number of black nationalist pundits? MENSA? Hardly.
So, some radicals are more equal than others, it would appear. And you'd think supposed Christians would be leery of accepting money from Caesar and/or Mammon, but so many of them are fine with it.
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Fascists are not all Nazis
Obviously, the defensive christofascists are uncomfortable with their outing as fascists, and are trying to pull the old "reductio ad Hitlerum" obfuscation.
Current religious fascists are fascistic, but are not Nazis. Who ever said that fascists must be nazis? Now, of course, many of them ASPIRE to nazi-like powers - witness the christofascist wet dreams in the "Left Behind" series, in which christofascist nazis have wet dreams about the destruction of their enemies. These are the only books which I have ever forbidden my children from reading.
The fascists who run most of the big-box churches are moral fascists, in that they seek to control the thoughts, emotions and most importantly wallets of their sheeple followers. That is the truth, and I sure am glad that many of the fascists who are posting here are uncomfortable.
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Castor oil needs to leave his mommies basement
ah, but it would be pure lying to claim that these communities are not at least somewhat segregated by race.
Most communities on the east are not segregated by race. People of all races live in any community they chose. My high school was pretty much 50/50 black white. Asians and hispanics did not start mass migrating illegally into the east coast until the 1980's, so there were none, just blacks and whites. And we integrated nicely. Why don't these counties that come here let whites in thier countries by the way. No matter how generous and open Americans are to newcomers, bigots like you (you're a Muslim, I'm guessing from your tone of hate against whites) scream racism if still more aren't let in. This country has let in 3 times as many immigrants as all of the other countries put together every year in a row for 30 years solid. And the people who want to destroy the US by bringing in more people than the country can absorb scream racism and xenophobia every time we have the audacity to suggest that we are becoming overcrowded and third world. Go back to the third world country you came from, Castor Oil.
There are 7 billion people on the planet and everyone can't come here. Make your own countries decent places to live. Give the female members of your society a chance to develop their own talents instead of spending all of your energy pressing down on them.
Getting back to the religous thread, mayybe Goddess is punishing hispanic and muslim countries for crapping on her daughters and that is why they are stinking overcrowded shitholes. Leave the US alone. We're tired of you people coming here. We've been generous long enough. Go home and clean up your own back yards and quit mooching off of us.