Unfortunately, I share the same last name as a certain former Republican Congressman.  It's not a common name, and for the last few weeks I have been receiving e-mails from a member of his family, who is a fundamentalist pastor at some congregation in California.  I have the same name as one of her sons.  

At first, I e-mailed this pastor to tell her that I'm not who she thinks I am, and that her personal e-mails are being misdirected.  This had no effect, and she continues to send me bulk e-mails. I assumed that she is older, not computer saavy, and so I remained polite and deleted the e-mails whenever they arrived.  

Well, today I received the following e-mail:

On the 29th of July an extremely important think tank report, paid for by the government, came forth from the Rand Corporation, a favorite of the Pentagon on National Security matters.

I heard the report early that morning on a news blip on NPR and went over to the Rand Site and found the report. I than posted about it on a number of sites as well as sent it out, all with back links.
There was also a link for a Congressional Briefing to be held on that day on the report.

The title above comes from a new Rand Corporation Report

After 7 years of conflict and occupations, with 893 coalition deaths -- 556 Americans, in Afghanistan and increasing, and 4,438 coalition deaths -- 4,124 Americans in Iraq and increasing, with tens of thousands of injured and maimed, physically and mentally, and millions of innocents in both countries killed, maimed, living as refugee's, fighting each other in sectarian civil wars, living in ethnically cleansed neighborhoods and area's in Iraq behind huge concrete blast walls, this "Think Tank?" comes out and says:

U.S. Should Rethink "War On Terrorism" Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida

Current U.S. strategy against terrorist organization al Qaida has not been successful at limiting the group's capabilities. Since Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaida has been involved in more terrorist attacks than ever before and over an increasingly broader range of targets.

Nietzsche was to Christianity as Marx was to capitalism. He was one of the fiercest critics of Christian fundamentalism as Marx was to capitalism. His problem was that far from creating a better world, Christianity created a state of slavery where doctrinal conformity was strictly enforced and entire cultures and religions were stamped out.

Islam was a reaction to this sterile conformity. Rather than the One Emperor, One Church, One State motif of the Byzantines, Islam presented itself as a religion of peace, where Muslim, Christian, and Judaism could live side by side. It sought to settle the quarrel between Christian and Jew by proclaiming that it didn't matter whether Jesus died on the cross; the only thing that mattered was submission to God.

The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power
Jeff Sharlet
Harper Collins
454 pp. $25.95

It’s one thing to say that a particular wing of modern conservatism seems a little fascist; it’s another thing to prove it unequivocally.

Jeff Sharlet’s The Family is about what is undeniably the most powerful and bizarre quasi-religious movement you’ve never heard of.  This is made evident near the beginning of the book, when Sharlet gives us a scene featuring Doug Coe, the group’s leader.  Coe is chatting with (or rather, instructing) Congressman Todd Tiahrt (R, Kansas):

Originally published hereand crossposted here.

Now that there's a bit of a lull in the pre-election diary volume,  I'd like to kick the discussion up from the "here and now" issues to an issue that will continue to resonate regardless of who is elected in November: the pathological coupling between religious fundamentalism, flag worship, and what can be called, for lack of a better term, "warrior worship." Join me below the fold,  won't you?

First, a confession: I often frequent news site message boards about some piece of pro-gay news when I'm bored or need something to amuse myself with. It's always a lot of fun to read these boards, because I can watch the logic of the anti-gay posters unravel almost before my eyes. But in reading their accusations and knee-jerk reactions to sober, reflective and logical commentary on issues such as Proposition 8, I've discovered something.

They really do think that people are all exactly alike, and think in exactly the same ways as they do. And if you look at the accusations they make against gays (and non-Christians of various stripes) you'll find that they really do believe that everyone lives in the same kind of paranoid, isolationist, terrified, conformist world that they do. It's really quite frightening to try to think about the world the way they do - and it's no wonder that they are so afraid, angry, and rigid when confronted with social change that doesn't conform to their dogmatic beliefs.

Come with me after the jump for a partial analysis of how fundamentalists, through projection, accuse everyone else of acting just like they do.

Nietzsche laid out a full-fledged assault on the basis of fundamentalism and called for the reevaluation of everything that we would think of as moral and right. And a similar reevaluation is totally called for thanks to eight years of abuse of power by the Bush administration, the cumulation of forces interested only in appropriating wealth and power to themselves at the expense of the common person.

Maybe McCain's trying to appeal to the "lottery class", the less affluent half of Americans who turn to "antithrifts" like paycheck lenders rather than banks, and who buy lottery tickets in hope of improving their lives. It's a bad deal, but gambling's an instinct, and big prizes are the big attraction, not good odds.  Witness the success of the TV show Deal or No Deal, a high-stakes game described as a glossy version of "how many fingers am I holding up behind my back?"

So rather than have a sensible energy policy, he wants to have a high-stakes game.  One Big Prize, $300 million, for whoever is judged to have made a Big Advance in car battery technology.  Nothing on energy sources, either -- that might lower the price of oil -- but something to make it easier to build a battery-storage electric car, to run off of the big contributors' grid.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

General William G. Boykin (ret.), implementer of US torture policies in Iraq under Donald Rumsfeld:

Here's the way I want to enter the gates of Heaven. I want to come skidding in there on all fours. I want to be slipping and sliding and I want to hit the gates of heaven with a bang. And when I stand up and I stand before Christ, I want there to be blood on my knees and my elbows. I want to be covered with mud. And I want to be standing there with a ragged breast plate of righteousness. And a spear in my hand. And I want to say, "Look at me, Jesus. I've been in the battle. I've been fighting for you." Ladies and gentlemen, put your armor on and get into battle. God bless you.

A few days ago, a tip was sent to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) research department to check out an organization called Marshall Minute Military Ministries. MRFF has investigated a seemingly endless stream of evangelical ministries and para-church organizations operating within the military, from small Mom and Pop church groups to large scale, military-wide operations like Campus Crusade for Christ's Military Ministry, who are well on their way to accomplishing their goal of turning our military into a force of "government-paid missionaries for Christ." Marshall Minute, however, had escaped our attention -- until now.

I'm no fun at parties anymore.

I'm like that guy whose only conversational gambit is to talk about the Spassky-Fisher match of 1973. Or the geek who has discovered SecondLife or WorldOfWarcraft. Or the airhead, who only wants to talk about celebrities, and other virtual worlds.

Or more to the point, that guy who has recently converted, and sees everything through the lens of the revealed.

In my case, that lens is cascading, endless bad news about species collapse, environmental degradation, peak oil and gas and phosphorus, toxic breaches and endocrine disruptions, and climate warming leading to ocean acidification. It's the human-made horrors of the last century.

Jeff Sharlet: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power  

Jeff Sharlet is (Ishmael) on Daily Kos.

This diary is my effort to transcribe an interview with him today on WNYC radio's The Leonard Lopate Show, about his new book. I've added my own notes and some helpful links.

Action needed? Read up, get informed by yourself because the corporate media will surely NOT be covering this very powerful and secretive group in Washington, DC.

All-Purpose Action Links:
The Nation action and media links for recommending the Jeff Sharlet's good work:
http://capwiz.com/...
Talking Points? In their wisdom, The Founding Fathers enshrined separation of Church and State so that each may thrive, free from undue influence. This group called "The Family" is a threat to our democracy.

Cheers to Kossack Jeff Sharlet for doing this work.

Book Review:
"Just when we thought the Christian right was crumbling, Jeff Sharlet delivers a rude shock: One of its most powerful and cult-like core groups, the Family, has been thriving. . . .

More below the fold:

(Warning: This diary was written by an atheist (me) who believes that most religion, and the "holy" texts they're based on, have done more harm than good. So if you're easily offended by "anti-God", "anti-religious" opinions, please change the channel... NOW.)

Yes, Barack Obama has a problem with his pastor(s). So does John McCain. Even Hillary Clinton... she has a problem with her pastor, too. You mean Barack's Rev. Wright problem (and now this Pfleger guy)? Or Haggee and Parsley's support for McCain? Or Hillary's weird "Fellowship" (or "The Family") thing? Actually, no... that's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is this: The problem isn't just with their respective preachers, or even their churches. The bigger issue is with their religions.*

* Note: The rest of this deals mostly with Christianity, since I admittedly know very little about other religions. Suffice to say that what I'm about to say could very easily apply to several other religions, including Judaism and Islam. Also, I realize that some good can come from certain aspects of religion, and religious beliefs. But since nobody is ever condemned for doing good deeds because of religion, that's irrelevant to the point I'm trying to make in this diary.

Recently I posted about John W's insane rant, face twitching in anger as he declared "he" will "never surrender" in Iraq. My question, which seems to have no answer, is "What does surrender look like, Mr. McCain?"

Well, perhaps it's "not converting Iraq to christianity".

Marines pass out Gospel verse to Iraqi Muslims, Iraqis say

I may not be an expert on the Koran, but this is an(other) act of war. One that might not be overlooked as easily as, say, killing everyone in your family.

There are barely words for this:

Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

"John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Yes folks, John McCain was shot down and held captive for your sins. Deification. All the rage in Republican circles.

As a prelude to my first diary entry on the Daily Kos, I feel that it is appropriate to give readers a brief background about me.  I'm not sure how much anyone could really want to know about my life, but I think it can be helpful when a reader has the opportunity to get to know the author.

I spent the first fifteen years of my life  as a republican, a very religious republican.  After my parents enrolled me in a "hippie" high school, it did not take long for me to change my views and embrace common sense.  I spent my las years in high school reading and debating very radical, theoretical political philosophies.  As a non-voting teenager, politics was always an ideal or a concept to debate, not a real system that can actually be changed.  It was not until George W's first term in office that I came to understand the impact our democratic republic has on real people.  Needless to say, I voted for Ralph Nader and in so doing, voted for George Bush.  I have since developed a passion for politics and a new philosophy about life as a whole.  After saying all this, I will get to the point of today's blog.