@enhydra lutris

You see, dominionists are no different from Episcopalians in terms of equal application of the rules against "religion bashing".

Despite the obvious fact that Dominionists have a lot more bashing coming than the Episcopalians could dream of in their worst moments.....

The way that rule is written, you can't even tell the inconvenient truths about a religion over there. Leah Remini would get banned in a stroke once she started discussing Scientology at all, for just one example. And all she'd be doing is telling the truth.

Hereabouts, our culture effectively bans bigotry of all kinds while still permitting telling truth about abusers of all kinds. This needs to be preserved and maintained.

#1 religionists over there was constantly working to try to get some sort of authorization to silence and even ban those who criticized, challenged, dismissed or were otherwise, in their opinions, "unkind" toward religion, religious matters and the like.

Kos, at one point, met them half-way, and ever since that date, they've had difficulty meeting the standard that they wished to impose on non-believers. You see, dominionists are no different from Episcopalians in terms of equal applicvation of the rules against "religion bashing". Specifically:

3. Bigotry.
Any language designed to denigrate someone on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, physical appearance, etc. is prohibited. Leave that shit to the Republicans.

(emphasis added).

Because of the high propensity for discourse over there to rapidly devolve into ad hominem territory this rule is a trap for those who wanted it most.

@travelerxxx

Forgot to mention that I would not suspect Anonymous. Not at all.

#5

Considering how Talk2action doesn't pull punches, one of my first thoughts was that they are publishing the goods on DeVos and somebody doesn't like that. Of course, that's with my tin-foil hat on...

I suppose more likely is that somebody forgot to pay a bill or a rodent managed to get inside a server.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Anonymous is hardly a monolithic group. 4chan is the birthplace of the Alt-right...

For example, Anonymous was reported to have declared war on both the Clinton campaign and the Trump campaign...

#5 Not sure why Anon would defend the Christian Right. Not exactly rife with fundies, are they? Although I've been wondering (kind of uselessly) how far the CIA's infiltration of Anon has gone.

@Lily O Lady Pence.

#6

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

Thanks for the link! Covers a lot of the issues beautifully, this being one of the psychopathic power-groups that must be fought hardest, especially if Coe is still providing presidential access, as seems likely. This is one of the ones that everyone should read.

https://www.democracynow.org/2009/8/12/sharlet

Jeff Sharlet on "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power"
StoryAugust 12, 2009

... JEFF SHARLET:

Yeah, yeah. There’s nobody who is — you know, there is no sort of strongman killer that they’re not interested in. Going back to the group’s early roots, they began with the idea that democracy was done, that democracy couldn’t compete with fascism or communism. They didn’t want to be communists. Fascism was OK, except that it had this cult of personality: where Jesus was supposed to be, you’d find a Hitler, a Mussolini. And so, they came up with this idea of totalitarianism for Christ, but they illustrate it with these awful models from history.

AMY GOODMAN:

Just talk about how significant this group is, for those who are saying, what, are you taking this little group, and you’re making a bigger deal of it than you should. According to David Kuo, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, he said, “The Fellowship’s reach into governments around the world is almost impossible to overstate or even grasp.”

JEFF SHARLET:

Yeah. Kuo, who is a supporter of the group, admirer of the group, talks in his book about the group basically getting him to the White House, making his career, also says it’s the most powerful group in Washington that nobody knows. And that’s actually been quantified by a sort of conservative-leaning sociologist at Rice University, who —

AMY GOODMAN: Who is that?

JEFF SHARLET: A man named Michael David Lindsay — I’m sorry, D. Michael Lindsay. And he surveyed about 360 evangelical politicians and wanted to ask them which religious groups were really influential in Washington. The group that came out with more votes than any other, one in three, was the Family. And this is astonishing for a group that says it doesn’t exist. ...

... AMY GOODMAN:

And talk more about the founder, Abraham Vereide.

JEFF SHARLET:

Yeah, fascinating, a fascinating character. Vereide was a Norwegian immigrant, came to the United States because he saw it as the land of the Bible unchained. He was an early fundamentalist and sort of rose to influence, even met with FDR in 1932.

And it was at that meeting — it was Vereide, FDR and James Farrell, who was then head of US Steel — that Farrell, he claims, introduces to him this idea that all of America’s economic problems are in direct correspondence to our failure to obey God’s law and that the approach to the Great Depression should not be the New Deal, but through this sort of moral code imposed from on high by God’s chosen men.

He then goes on to have this vision that God actually comes to him one night and says, “Christianity has gotten it wrong for 2,000 years — all this talk about the poor, the suffering, the down and out. I want you to focus on the up and out. I want you to be a missionary to and for the powerful. I will work through a few key men — Senator Ensign, Governor Sanford — and, through them, will help everybody else.” The Family believes that they’re helping the poor through a kind of trickle-down religion.

AMY GOODMAN:

And his sympathy, the founder’s sympathy, for European fascism?

JEFF SHARLET:

Yeah, they were great admirers of European fascism. They were critical of the ways in which Hitler and Mussolini, in their minds, displaced the centrality of Jesus. But after the war, actually working with the US State Department, Vereide was given a charge to go into the Allied prisons for war criminals and interview men to determine who he felt could be used for the new German government. And really, the main question was, are you willing to switch out the Fuhrer for the Father?

Some of those guys — one, in particular, was a man named Hermann J. Abs, became the vice president of the Family’s German organization, became known as “the wizard of the West German miracle,” until the Simon Wiesenthal Center discovered that before he had been known as Germany’s banker, he had been known as Hitler’s banker, and he was forced to exit public life.

AMY GOODMAN:

So, jumping forward to today, all of these men who are involved with this group, like Senator Sam Brownback, whose seat is being vied for by Congressman Tiahrt —

JEFF SHARLET:

Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN:

—- and his opponent is also -—

JEFF SHARLET:

Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN:

— living at C Street house.

JEFF SHARLET:

Yes, yes. I think, you know, the Family — when we look at this, we start to have a different picture of Christian right group, is not, you know, picking candidates in an election. In that race for that Senate, you have two conservative Republicans: Jerry Moran, lives in the C Street House, representative from Kansas; and Todd Tiahrt, who also has these ties, which he’s now denying. But these guys are both trying to work through this very powerful network, which is, essentially, as one religious right leader, a guy named Rob Schenck, sort of doing — mixing his metaphors, he says, “Doug Coe is the kosher seal, if you’re going to do religion and politics in Washington.”

AMY GOODMAN:

President Bush calling Doug Coe “the quiet diplomat.” In our last thirty seconds, what is most important to understand about Doug Coe and, ultimately, the Family?

JEFF SHARLET:

This is a group that is explicitly opposed to democracy, explicitly opposed to doing things in public. They believe “the more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence you can have.” That’s a direct quote from Doug Coe. They’re acting like a lobby; they’re not registering like a lobby. There needs to be a way to hold them accountable, if they want do those —- pursue those kinds of basic [inaudible] -—

AMY GOODMAN:

I want to thank you very much for being with us. Jeff Sharlet is author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, contributing editor for Harper’s and Rolling Stone, a visiting research scholar at NYU Center for Religion and Media.

#8 This guy's work is awesome. Like Scahill's. Amazing to see investigative journalism. Kind of like seeing a dodo walk down Main St.