Whitehead: "The Experiment in Freedom is Failing"

I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that I know (or, rather, knew, as I've since looked him up) nothing about John W. Whitehead, or the Rutherford Institute: something I'd venture to guess is not true for most other people here.

Just in case, however, here's a brief snippet from his bio:

John W. Whitehead is an attorney and author who has written, debated and practiced widely in the area of constitutional law and human rights. Whitehead's concern for the persecuted and oppressed led him, in 1982, to establish The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization whose international headquarters are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Whitehead gained international renown as a result of his role as co-counsel in Paula Jones' sexual harassment lawsuit against President Clinton.

What brings me to Whitehead today? An article he published at Counterpunch, "The Experiment in Freedom is Failing." The entire article is worth the time it takes to read. The takeaway?

For too long, the American people have obeyed the government’s dictates, no matter now unjust.

We have paid its taxes, penalties and fines, no matter how outrageous. We have tolerated its indignities, insults and abuses, no matter how egregious. We have turned a blind eye to its indiscretions and incompetence, no matter how imprudent. We have held our silence in the face of its lawlessness, licentiousness and corruption, no matter how illicit.

Oh how we have suffered.


Wake up, America, and break free of your chains.

Something wicked this way comes.

I would ask: why does this man, and his ideas, not get more exposure? But I already know the answer to that. So instead, I'll ask: How can we ally ourselves with him?

I'm in Big Al's camp in thinking that we, the people, are in inextricable mess with only one clear way out. But I get tripped up when it's time to think of how we get out, especially with so many of our fellow Americans hypnotized by the media and our politicians. Perhaps if we could find a way to amplify Whitehead's message, it would be a start?

At any rate, his books have now vaulted to the top of my reading list.

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Meteor Man's picture

The U.S. government now poses the greatest threat to our freedoms.

More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, even more than the perceived threat posed by any single politician, the U.S. government remains a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

This has been true of virtually every occupant of the White House in recent years.

Now that's talking truth to power.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

arendt's picture

This man is an excellent rightwing propagandist.

Read his stuff. Do corporations take any blame for putting the government up to doing awful things? Corporations sometimes do it to make a profit, sometimes to have the law do their dirtywork (as in having the government smash OWS). You would never think to blame Goldman Sachs or Raytheon or Exxon if all you listened to was this guy.

No, this man is poison for true lefties, because he steals our clothes. He excoriates the police state while letting the corporations that lobby for it off scot free. Its all part of the plan. Silence/censor true left wing voices, then stir the shit with the masses from a rightwing POV. Mission accomplished: the proles blame only the government, not the government's corporate masters and billionaire funders.

Not buying this guy's line.

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WaterLily's picture

@arendt Appreciate your response.

That said, couldn't you make the case that the Raytheons, Exxon Mobils and Goldman Sachs of the world couldn't screw us front, back and sideways without full support from the government? I think plenty of people plebes blamed Goldman Sachs, for instance, but fat lot of good that did us.

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arendt's picture

@WaterLily

couldn't the...Goldman Sachs of the world couldn't screw us front, back and sideways without full support from the government?

The government didn't USED TO support GS's right to loot everything. The government used to fine and sue Wall St. It is by buying the politicians with their deep pockets that GS has been able to twist the law to support GS. Case in point: Trump just appointed some insider hack to run the SEC. Is that "support from" the government or control of the government?

The government doesn't SUPPORT GS, the government is OWNED BY GS. The government is the red cape that the enraged populist bull charges. The matador (GS) is unharmed, and still intent on killing the populists.

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Lily O Lady's picture

@arendt

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

WaterLily's picture

@arendt The government is responsible for the law that makes all of this "legal," in the name of "free speech."

I agree with your logic. I also think the whole government/business issue is a bit chicken-and-egg. I know the government didn't used to support unfettered corporate greed at the expense of regular citizens. But now it does, and it seems impossible to stuff that horse back into the barn. How can we effectively change our current situation by going after giant multi-national corporations, especially when we lack the mechanisms?

Honest question.

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lotlizard's picture

@WaterLily  
By their control over Amazon, Google, Facebook, and the like, a few fabulously wealthy oligarchs now own the public square, the medium, the very air over which speech, sharing, and community organizing are supposed to take place.

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snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

to alternative news websites. Many have lost anywhere from 30-90% of internet traffic and are struggling to survive. They have been asking for donations because they want to keep their websites free from ads.
This should be considered interference or suppression of news websites, but who is going to charge them with that?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

WaterLily's picture

@snoopydawg It really is.

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arendt's picture

@WaterLily

How can we effectively change our current situation by going after giant multi-national corporations, especially when we lack the mechanisms?

Honest question.

Americans have about as much chance of changing our corporatist government as the Germans had of getting rid of Hitler with parliamentary politics. ZERO. Our political system is not coming back from the last thirty years of being systematically looted, sabotaged, and trashed by rightwing lunatics, corporatist neoliberals, and Silicon Valley techno-Libertarians.

Our 200+ year old Constitution has proven itself simply unable to fight off the kind of insider/big money assault that has been run since Reagan came in. Voting registration has been rolled back to Jim Crow levels of exclusion. Voting machines are completely hacked. The DNC is nothing but a front for corporate money; it will not allow progressives any role. The corporate media will not only not air leftwing POVs, they will label them as "fake news".

We can't change anything. Our only hope is that corporate America pisses off the rest of the world so much that our house of Ponzi-schemes economy is torpedoed while our military is contained. Trump is actually better for that than Hillary would have been. He is smashing up US credibility worldwide while accomplishing nothing militarily. Our only genuine allies are Israel and KSA - and KSA just bought S-400's and visited Moscow.

It won't be fun to be here when the US comes crashing down while the perps escape on Ratlines to whatever boltholes they have prepared, ala Nazis scuttling off to safety in South America.

But maybe, if WW3 isn't the result, those who survive the downfall of corporate America might be able to write a better Constitution for the Second American Republic. Because the First One is over.

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@arendt
I tend to agree with everything you wrote in that post; I really think that is the reality we in the U.S. face at this point.

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@arendt and imo one of the best short summaries of the current state and the future state of the good old USA I have read in awhile.

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snoopydawg's picture

@arendt

insider/big money assaults... or was it simply ignored by those who had the power to do so?

Our 200+ year old Constitution has proven itself simply unable to fight off the kind of insider/big money assault that has been run since Reagan came in. Voting registration has been rolled back to Jim Crow levels of exclusion. Voting machines are completely hacked. The DNC is nothing but a front for corporate money; it will not allow progressives any role. The corporate media will not only not air leftwing POVs, they will label them as "fake news".

Republicans have ignored the premise that every eligible voter to vote because republicans used some made up rules tying voting with the census. There is nothing in the constitution that requires people to have to show their IDs to be able to vote, yet republican states made up this rule knowing damn well that it would affect poor people who don't have the access to jump through their hoops. Many places that where people could get their I
Do (papers that prove who they are) have been close down so people have to go farther to get them and if they don't have their papers, they have to make return trips. For people who don't have transportation to the places or have to take time off or work to do this aren't going to be able to do so. Many times their families have to drive them there which means that they too have to take time off of their jobs.
And of course the democrats have done nothing about this.

The Supreme Court made up its own rules when it passed Citizens United which threw campaign finance under the bus. Instead of just Russia being able to influence elections (s/), other foreign governments can give money to anyone's super PAC that helps meet their goals.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@arendt

denounced dnc and accepted stein's offer to head green ticket.

what then?

would have been real interesting. tptb could not have stopped him at that point.
f**k threats, he could have run from a bunker.

I think we had a chance, but we had the wrong horse.
needed Lincoln, got Bernie.

if he runs as a dem in 2020, prepare for the sequel.
if he runs independent, I will pay attention.

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@irishking

By doing what he did, Bernie was able to bring Progressive ideas such as a living wage and universal healthcare to those Americans restricted to a corporate media which normally blacks out such ideas.

Would they otherwise be so widely regarded as possible - or mentioned at all in anything mainstream otherwise typically running non-stop propaganda - if Bernie had spat defiance at the Coronation DNC Nom-the-nation Convention and been suppressed into silenced obscurity?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North

as Green Party candidate he would not have been obscure.
certainly would have made debate stage.

running as a dem had given him all the publicity he needed.
by cheating, the dems gave him the perfect out.
he refused to jump.

so we'll never know.
if sanders runs as a dem in 2020 , I expect the same tent folding at the end.
sorry to say it. happy to be wrong.

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@arendt

Well, the fact that American's Constitutional rights and (an updated version of) its more enlightened Founders intent were ignored by those regarding and even referring to the Constitution they swore to uphold as a condition of holding public office 'as a piece of paper' doesn't make the basis of legitimate law - overriding all others - in America invalid. It just makes such officials in violation of their Oath and therefore loses them that public office, whether this is officially/publicly recognized or not.

The more so as legitimate US government must be as described: of, by and for the people, with equal rights, treatment and opportunity guaranteed for all. Meaning that nobody can be 'above the law', even if a criminal gang invades government, as occurred some time ago.

Such an undemocratic fuss created over protesting people standing up for America by not 'standing up for the flag and anthem' - these being mere transient symbols which could be altered without changing anything or anyone else else and currently representing fascism - while the Constitution forming the actual heart of the country is used as toilet paper under the distraction of false 'patriotism'.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

enhydra lutris's picture

@WaterLily @WaterLily
power to crush strikes and boycotts while becoming cooperatively as resilient and quasi-self sufficient as possible.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

WaterLily's picture

@arendt @arendt Whitehead's libertarian lean, which I missed in my rush to post this essay.

If you're coming at his argument on those grounds, I see your point.

(Edited for clarity).

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arendt's picture

@WaterLily

See my response "You are completely ignorant of Whitehead/Rutherford background" below.

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WaterLily's picture

@arendt In attempting to sort this all out, I saw references to cases in which he (or the Institute, I don't recall which) defended Muslim and Jewish clients, as well as Christian ones, against religious discrimination. So I missed this background. Good to know.

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@arendt

OMG, thanks for the information!

This is how fascism and other fanaticism takes over in such times, by conning those of us who fall for speeches and assuming that what's meant is what we'd mean ourselves...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

snoopydawg's picture

@arendt

the banks have been involved in both sides of every military intervention we have been involved in. The power of the banks go back to the JP Morgan days when he and other banks got on board with the Rothschilds and Rockefellers.
I see both sides of your arguments coming from different directions.

The last time that banks had to pay a price was after the Great Depression. They certainly didn't own government at this time and they didn't just gain power after the Clintons created their DLC. This was built on the policies of Reagan and others who came before him.
But it's obvious that they own the government now.

I posted a link to an article about how they were given free reign after the global economy crisis, but they were the ones who helped destroy glass steagal.
I could be totally wrong about this, but then again, not.
I'm not as well versed on this as others are.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

http://grammarist.com/spelling/free-rein-free-reign/

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@irishking

True, but the Banksters also do, unfortunately reign as well, which led me to think that this play on words was intended?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Meteor Man's picture

@arendt

The U.S. government now poses the greatest threat to our freedoms.

And headnotes from the article:

We’re being robbed blind by a government of thieves

We’re being taken advantage of by a government of scoundrels, idiots and cowards

We’re being ravaged by a government of ruffians, rapists and killers (in reference to SWAT teams)

This article is as caustic of a condemnation of the U.S. government
as any that I am aware of.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

mimi's picture

@Meteor Man @Meteor Man @Meteor Man (edited typos)
no more comment
Aggressive

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arendt's picture

@Meteor Man

subsidiary of Wall St., the MIC, Big Oil, the Koch Brothers, Jeff Bezos, and all the rest of the Deep State.

Mr. Rutherford only wants to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. He wants Christian Reconstructionist in charge instead of Godless Neoliberal Elites.

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Meteor Man's picture

@arendt
From Wiki:

Since its founding, the Rutherford Institute has expanded its aims from defending the religious liberties of Christians to include defending the religious liberties of all Americans, as well as working to preserve rights such as free speech and the right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure.

Religious liberty Edit
In 2004 the group filed a lawsuit against Muskogee Public Schools in Oklahoma on behalf of Nashala Hearn, an 11-year-old Muslim student who was suspended for wearing a religious headscarf to school.[17]

In 2007 they filed a lawsuit against Freehold Township, New Jersey on behalf of an orthodox rabbi, Avraham Bernstein, alleging that the town was persecuting Bernstein for holding prayer meetings in his home on the Sabbath.[18]

In 2011 the group took up the cause of Laura George, founder of the Oracle Institute, who wanted to build a "Peace Pentagon", a proposed interfaith study center and retreat, on the banks of the New River in Independence, Virginia. After George was refused a building permit when the local Board of Supervisors voted to deny the project on health, safety and welfare grounds, attorneys acting on behalf of the Rutherford Institute pursued a legal action to acquire the permit, alleging religious discrimination;[19] eventually the building permit was granted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_Institute

Whitehead is a regular contributor at Counterpunch. I am not aware of Counterpunch providing a soap box for Christian Fundamentalists.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

arendt's picture

@Meteor Man

Do you have any idea that the Dominionists are as slippery as the Koch Brothers. Their operatives sit around denying they are Dominionists even as they forward the cause.

Do you deny the heavily documented Dominionist background of Whitehead and Rutherford?

The pattern of behavior is more revealing than a single case. An examanation of their "recent victories page" ("recent" being used very loosely) shows the pattern more clearly. Out of 9 cases cited, 6 were in support of religious expression. One would expect a champion of religious freedom to support the non-dominent religions (the dominant religion having the tyrany of the majority in its favor) but 5 out of the 6 cases were clearly Christian and the other unidentified. One of the remaining cases was defending a students right to display the confederate flag.

In one case that was not clearly religious in nature, Rutherford objected to external genital exams as part of a head to toe physical on preschoolers as part of the eligibility requirements for the Head Start program. Rutherford treated it as if the genital exams (for normal development) were an infringement of the parents rights against unlawful search without probable cause and alleged that the inspection could only be for signs of sexual abuse. In their mission statement they included "protecting the rights of parents whose children are strip-searched at school"; is that a fair characterization of a routine physical exam conducted by trained nurses? Rutherford seems more concerned in this case with promoting parental rights than promoting children's rights.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rutherford_Institute

Whitehead is a regular contributor at Counterpunch. I am not aware of Counterpunch providing a soap box for Christian Fundamentalists.

Sorry, I don't trust Counterpunch 100% anymore. Cockburn has trashed Caitlin Johnstone, and he constantly posts an ex-Israeli soldier/med student, whose POV is too right/neolib for me.

Bottom line: Counterpunch has no problem publishing not very far left sources. I see no reason they would not publish anyone who gets their numbers up and keeps them from being labeled "fake news"

As I said, after 15+ years of vociferous fundamentalist agitation, Whitehead no longer has that up front - but he has never disavowed it. As I said, he is now able to trash the government that he helped create via years of tying it up in fundamentalist lawsuits. A self-fulfilling prophet.

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edg's picture

@arendt

he did write this in the article: Not surprisingly, the primary ones to benefit from these government exercises in legal money laundering have been the corporations, lobbyists and politicians who inflict them on a trusting public.

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@arendt

Staffed by them, too...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

arendt's picture

@Meteor Man

"You are completely ignorant of Whitehead/Rutherford background"

The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Meteor Man

This is one of the things that the article discusses.
Another point is this:

There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government civilians armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines

This was after he wrote about how every organization in our government has been armed with the same military equipment that the military has. They collected billions of hollow point bullets which I read about 10 years ago. Why would the departments of the social security administration, the FDA, NASA, department of education and other agencies need to have that many bullets let alone military equipment? For this:?

That doesn’t even begin to touch on the government’s arsenal, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, and the speed with which the nation could be locked down under martial law depending on the circumstances.

Remember that Obama signed legislation in one of the NDAAs that says the military can arrest anyone who they think is involved in terrorist activities and hold them indefinitely without charges or access to a lawyer.

Martial law already had a trial run after the Boston bombings. SWAT teams went through Watertown under the pretense of looking for the bombers. They kicked people out of their homes and searched them without warrants. How did people do during this trial run on martial law? They failed. Miserably.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@arendt

Good point - depending whether or not he views the US government, as it stands, as consisting of representatives of corporate/billionaire self-interests, even where they have not moved in directly from their ranks, as has been the case since the Bush 2 Admin.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

It's a criminal enterprise at the top controlled by the oligarchy which includes major corporations, banks, rich people, etc. Whitehead certainly knows that but focuses on primarily the police state.

As you said, it's a tough row to hoe but in the end we have to change how we're governed. Right now we are being ruled by the rich, government to the highest bidder and it has to be changed. More and more are realizing that can't be done thru this political system, that is the primary vehicle in which they maintain their rule.

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arendt's picture

@Big Al

The Rutherford Institute has been fundametalist rightwing from day one. They hate government because they are FUCKING DOMINIONIST THEOCRATS.

The Institute for First Amendment Studies receives many calls concerning a number of Religious Right organizations. Near the top of the list is the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based Christian legal organization that promotes the Christian Right agenda through the courts. The following report offers some pertinent and basic information about this influential organization...

John Whitehead's 1982 book, The Second American Revolution, which sold well over 100,000 copies, helped establish the Rutherford Institute as a leading far-right organization.

The Second American Revolution contains numerous references to a former Presbyterian minister named Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony. A prolific writer, Rushdoony is known as "the father of Christian Reconstruction." He heads an organization called Chalcedon.

http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/fw/9406/rutherford.html

John Whitehead, an ex-student of Rushdoony’s, and introduced by him once at the council as a man ‘chosen by God,’ directs the Rutherford Foundation, a legal arm of the Chalcedon Foundation (which until his death was run by Rushdoony and funded by Howard Ahmanson). Rutherford’s important mission is to fight the legal battles on behalf of Reconstructionism.” [pp. 263]

Mark Crispin Miller, "Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order" (2004)

“The Rutherford Institute’s John Whitehead was a student of both Schaeffer and Rushdoony, and credits them as the two major influences on his thought. … [I]t is not surprising that Whitehead goes to great lengths to deny that he is a Reconstructionist. Rushdoony, introducing Whitehead at a Reconstructionist conference, called him a man ‘chosen by God.’ Rushdoony then spoke of ‘our plans, through Rutherford, to fight the battle against statism and the freedom of Christ’s Kingdom.’” … “The Rutherford Institute was founded as a legal project of R. J. Rushdoony’s Chalcedon Foundation, with Rushdoony and fellow Chalcedon director Howard Ahmanson on its original board of directors. Whitehead credits Rushdoony with providing the outline for his first book, which he researched in Rushdoony’s library. ” [p.69]

Frederick Clarkson, in a chapter Chip Berlet's, "Eyes Right: Challenging The Rightwing Backlash edited by Chip Berlet" (1999)

The last two quotes were found at:

http://exiledonline.com/rightwing-rutherford-institute-co-founded-by-a-r...

Whitehead is in the Christian fundamentalist wing of the "I hate government" party. He and the Libertarian wing have spent the last thirty years smashing up the government. Hearing him complain about the state of the government is like hearing an abused wife being lectured by her drunken husband about her poor housekeeping after he just trashed the house.

Please find out where the ship you are boarding is headed before you get on board.

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@arendt Thanks for the info.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Big Al's picture

@arendt @arendt And it doesn't mean he's not right in what he's saying. I knew a little about Whitehead before this btw. My comment in no way said I was sailing on his "ship".
Maybe if you could say specifically what you disagreed with in his essay it would be helpful.

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arendt's picture

@Big Al

Do corporations take any blame for putting the government up to doing awful things? Corporations sometimes do it to make a profit, sometimes to have the law do their dirtywork (as in having the government smash OWS). You would never think to blame Goldman Sachs or Raytheon or Exxon if all you listened to was this guy.

No, this man is poison for true lefties, because he steals our clothes. He excoriates the police state while letting the corporations that lobby for it off scot free.

I remember this also from decades of fundamentalist horseshit. I don't listen to a word he says, except to point out what a fundamentalist fanatic he is.

If you are offended by that, I am sorry. I am done splitting hairs about people who want to split my head. (Not you, Whitehead.)

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@arendt

Didn't T.S. Eliot call that "the ultimate treason"? (Murder in the Cathedral)

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

arendt's picture

@TheOtherMaven

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Big Al's picture

@arendt I thought the basic message in his essay was right on. I didn't see any railing on corporations or banks, but I frequently don't do that either, preferring to focus on the government with the inference that the oligarchy controls it. I'm all for pointing out inconsistencies and false narratives that serve to forward a right wing or conservative agenda. Whitehead typically focuses on the police state, prison populations, things like that where his ideology doesn't seem to harm the message.

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arendt's picture

@Big Al

Having been raised Catholic, authoritarian religions have always scared me. But, fundamentalists? And Dominionists? They are absolute nutbags. And, the Koch Brothers toss them a few crumbs and use them.

The Kochs think they can use Dominionists the way the German industrialists thought they could use Hitler. Just wait until Mike Pence gets in.

To me, Whitehead is a known "made man" in the Dominionist crime family. I cut him no slack whatsoever. If he said something correct, its "two generals on a raft" - enemies going in the same direction.

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Big Al's picture

@arendt things Whitehead is and has been saying about the police state and corruption of government in this country. I think you're discounting a voice that can be used and is helpful. Where we end up after taking down the government should be up to the people, not Whitehead himself. That would be the point, power to the people instead of who is controlling our government. If he can help us get there, I'm not seeing the problem at this point.

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arendt's picture

@Big Al

They worked hand in glove with Mussolini, who made them the state religion. They looked the other way about the Nazis. After WW2, they were dirty. So, presto, chango, they became the most ferocious anti-communists in the West. Rehabilitation through Commie-bashing.

Based on his own writings in the 1980s, he worked hand in glove with the Dominionists. (( Now, unlike the Nazis then, the Dominionists now are still around. I mean, Abrahmson bought (?and still owns?) one of the crooked voting machine companies.)) But, the fundies are losing adherents, especially among young people. I mean, hell they told their people to vote for Trump. The fundies have exposed themselves as rank hypocrites.

So, having blown up your right wing base, what does Whitehead do? He becomes a screaming anti-Trumper. No apologies about his past. Only look forward. How convenient. And lefties who don't have a history about this guy are buying him like he has no rap sheet.

----

The Dominionism link seems a little thin. I just don't see this as all that big a deal.

The link is about as strong as the Dominionists let surface. RI was funded initially by them. Rushooney praised the guy. What do you want, Nixonian tapes? These guys are mafiosi, they are smart enough to speak elliptically, and well-connected enough to just deny everything and run the paper shredders.

"Not a big deal." That doesn't work for me. I was there in the 80s. I saw these dangerous creeps. I have not forgotten them, Whitehead especially.

The fact that you don't find Whitehead suspicious just depresses me. The record of the RI is a hard right record, with a lot of PR spin about how they benefit everyone. I remember it differently. They went full on after Bill Clinton, with a pile of money from that deceased, deranged hater, Richard Mellon Scaife; but they didn't go after any GOP sex scandals.

They have always been rightwing fundamentalist tools; and if you think they are on your side, you are setting yourself up for a pointy object in your back. Just my opinion, based on my life experience. You might find it a little thin.

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@Big Al @Big Al

The best of articles on Dominionism in the White House and elsewhere started disappearing, at least hiding from my searches, some years ago, or had the term altered to Calvanism or the like in various articles remaining. And the top article showing on this search page is at TOP...

But it's essentially a psychopathic corporate-funded, corporate/wealth-worshipping ideology that teaches that the wealthiest are beloved of God and that the wealthiest have the right to do whatever they want to the less/not wealthy, no matter how cruel. And deception is their gospel.

This is enough for a hint to stay well clear of any of their ilk. This lot almost makes me believe in devils...

Might want to read this in full at source, start picking out politically influential names - including Betsy DeVos, 'helping' the children of the Disposable Poors rid themselves of enforced public schooling... they like to indoctrinate toddlers into submission to their insanity.

(Emphasis mine)

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/8/23/142836/277

Dominionism's parallel economy: Corporate sponsors

Thu Aug 23, 2007 at 02:28:36 PM EST
Today, I begin covering a series here that I've been covering on DailyKos--namely, what may be one of the first attempts to fully plumb the dominionist "parallel economy".

The first installment on DailyKos was in large part a repeat of my post on "Shepherd's Guides" and similar "Christian yellow pages" type directories; here on Talk to Action, we'll begin the series with discussion of the four companies that are most solidly linked with dominionism in the workplace--Amway/Quixtar, Chick-Fil-A, Hobby Lobby, and US Plastics.

As you will see, a surprising amount of money actually gets funneled to dominionist groups by these four companies--and readers of Talk to Action may wish to consider where their money goes when making their shopping decisions.

Much has been made of dominionist corporate sponsorship by neoconservative groups like the Scaife and Coors foundations--there are some major dominionist corporate sponsors that are themselves dominionists and major players in the "parallel economy", though.

Amway aka Quixtar

AmWay--it's a dominionist funding group, it's a major recruitment front for dominionist churches, it's a coercive group in and of itself, it's all of the above!

Minor snark aside, AmWay is probably the one of the biggest funders of dominionism, and does a fair amount of promotion of dominionism (among its worst offenses).

AmWay--or more properly, its "Amway Business Motivational Organisations" used in "downlines" of the company--is frequently cited as a prototypical example of a "coercive business group"--that is, a business organisation that operates much like a coercive religious group. Multiple "exit counselors" and researchers into coercive groups have expressed grave concern regarding Amway BMO's and particular downlines. Steven Hassan, a professional "exit counselor" who operates the Freedom of Mind Institute, has listed the Amway BMOs as coercive groups according to the BITE model of "abusiveness" of groups; other groups that have expressed concern include FACTnet, Cult Awareness Information Centre, and Rick Ross Institute. (It is not an exaggeration to state that the only groups more universally considered abusive are Scientology and the Moonies.) In fact, at least one major "danger sign" already exists--a specific org called amquix.info exists re AmWay's history of abuse, and a very good book called Merchants of Deception exists detailing both the abuse and the extensive promotion of dominionism within AmWay.

And believe you me, Amway promotes dominionism like it was going out of style.

Many AmWay downlines--in particular the Dexter Yager downline--are known to promote specific types of dominion theology popular in neopentecostal circles, in particular within the Assemblies of God. This should probably not be shocking; quite a lot of Diamonds in AmWay are known to be members of the Assemblies of God and/or the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International. Notable Assemblies Diamond-level AmWay members include John Ashcroft and Doug Wead, both of whom have had very close links with George W. Bush; Wead in particular largely coached Bush in regards to "learning to speak dominionist-ese" and largely introduced Bush to dominionist leaders. (Of particular note, Ashcroft is very influential in Assemblies of God circles; his father is founder of Chi Alpha, an Assemblies "fraternity front" targeting college-age students.)

Multiple persons who have left AmWay have reported heavy pressure to convert to dominionist and specifically neopentecostal forms of faith in Business Motivational Organisations; in other words, there is a very strong possibility that AmWay may in and of itself be used as a front to recruit people into dominionist churches. Likewise, there is considerable evidence that AmWay in large part may be promoted as a type of "MLM affinity fraud" within Assemblies of God churches in particular--hence the two groups are essentially acting as "co-recruiters", the Assemblies recruiting from AmWay downlines and AmWay recruiting from Assemblies churches. (It is of note that AmWay is often promoted by FGBMFI members as a "Christian Business Opportunity" to audiences in dominionist churches and is very, very actively promoted as part of the "parallel economy"--specifically as a "Christian alternative" to Proctor and Gamble, as noted below.) It is of particular note that often Diamonds linked with neopentecostal dominionist groups are quite high up in the hierarchies of both church and AmWay (for example, Diamonds who are deacons or even assistant ministers in churches).

In addition, AmWay motivational seminars (in particular, within the Dexter Yager downline) have promoted specific deceptive methods of recruitment into religious groups--specifically, a tactic known as "servant evangelism", "stealth evangelism", or "bait and switch evangelism". The concept in general involves striking up a business relationship, false friendship, etc. for the explicit purpose of gaining enough trust to begin religious hard-sells to the target person--with the explicit knowledge that the target will be unaware until it is too late that the entire purpose of the relationship was to gain a convert.

One of the big bits of dominion theology AmWay has promoted is the concept known alternately as "Name It And Claim It", "Blab It And Grab It", "Confess and Possess", or "Prosperity Gospel". ("Prosperity Gospel" is actually based on a variation of dominion theology that teaches that Satan "stole dominion" over the world upon the fall of Adam and Christ was tortured (or, in some versions, wrestled the devil) for three days in Hell; it is also explicitly taught that the Saved or Elect are "God's Army" (or "Joel's Army") and that they are literally on a mission from God to "reclaim dominion" over all things physical and spiritual. "Prosperity Gospel" is essentially a subset that teaches that one must "name and claim" what one desires to "claim dominion" over it and seize it.) In particular, AmWay motivational seminars have been known to promote the works of specific authors well known in the "Prosperity Gospel" and "Word-Faith" circuits (including E. W. Kenyon, Robert Schuller, Norman Vincent Peale and Don Gossett) and have been known to quote Bible verses out of context (a practice known as "scripture twisting") in identical manner to "Prosperity Gospel" churches.

AmWay is also known to promote concepts relating to neopentecostal concepts of "deliverance ministry" and in particular concepts relating to "Serpent Seed" theology--the concept that all humans are either literal sons of God or literal sons of Satan (persons refusing to buy from AmWay are described as the latter and as being used as "tools of Satan" to oppress AmWay salespersons). ...

Their god is Meritocracy. Son of Mammon...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/betsy-devos-trumps-education-pick-could-ma...

Urgent
Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Pick, Could Make Life Hell for LGBT Youth
Senators must ask if a socially conservative crusader intends to protect gay and transgender students. Lives are at stake.

Jay Michaelson
01.17.17 9:45 AM ET

As billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos heads into her confirmation hearings to run the Department of Education, most questions will likely be about her support for school vouchers, charter schools, and other alternatives to the public school system.

But there is an urgent need to ask DeVos another set of questions: What would she do to protect the most vulnerable students, particularly LGBT students, from harassment and violence? Would her department make matters even worse for them?

Same-sex marriage may grab the headlines, but education policy at all levels of government often has more of an effect on the daily lives of LGBT people, because despite all the progress in recent years, queer kids are still being bullied, and still attempting suicide at four times the rate of straight kids.

DeVos’s stance on LGBT rights is not known—she has declined to comment ahead of the confirmation hearings—but there are, to put it mildly, reasons for concern.

The DeVos family has been the primary funder of some of the most anti-LGBT organizations in the country, to the tune of more than $200 million. Her father-in-law, Richard DeVos, was one of the first mega-funders of the Christian right in the 1970s, and his foundation is now a fixture at The Gathering, the Woodstock of Christian right funders, and a major funder of Focus on the Family. The DeVos Center for Religion and Society at the Heritage Foundation has promoted a quasi-theocratic worldview. And Betsy DeVos’s father, Edgar Prince, was a founder of the Family Research Council. ...

The Bush 2 gang is back with a vengeance, Dominionism and all - although this has not yet been as immediately apparent as this would have been under Family member, Hillary Clinton.

http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/12/17/34033/248

The Question Hillary Clinton Won't Answer
Frederick Clarkson

...One of the competitors is a shadowy, religious right group known as "The Family". Targets for recruitment include both Republicans and Democrats. A few years ago journalist Jeff Sharlet went undercover to learn about the machinations of this secretive network -- and his findings were published in Harpers magazine: Jesus plus nothing: Undercover among America's secret theocrats.

In a follow-up article last fall in Mother Jones, Sharlet and Kathryn Joyce detailed the involvement of Senator Hillary Clinton in this group. She refused to talk with them about it.

Here are excerpts from the Harpers article:

the Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February in Washington, D.C. Each year 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations, pay $425 each to attend. Steadfastly ecumenical, too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can "meet Jesus man to man."

The group plays a behind the scenes role, in facilitating relationships between world leaders:

During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. "We work with power where we can," the Family's leader, Doug Coe, says, "build new power where we can't."

At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe for what he described as "quiet diplomacy, I wouldn't say secret diplomacy," as an "ambassador of faith."

Suffice to say, there is much, much more in this ground-breaking article that will more than raise eyebrows -- and go a long way to helping to illuminate some dark corners of why things are the way they are Inside the Beltway. ...

Also links to:

(Emphasis mine)

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clin...

Hillary’s Prayer: Hillary Clinton’s Religion and Politics
For 15 years, Hillary Clinton has been part of a secretive religious group that seeks to bring Jesus back to Capitol Hill. Is she triangulating—or living her faith?

Jeff Sharlet and Kathryn JoyceSep. 1, 2007

...Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. “A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation,” says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. “I don’t….there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer.”

Clinton’s faith is grounded in the Methodist beliefs she grew up with in Park Ridge, Illinois, a conservative Chicago suburb where she was active in her church’s altar guild, Sunday school, and youth group. It was there, in 1961, that she met the Reverend Don Jones, a 30-year-old youth pastor; Jones, a friend of Clinton’s to this day, told us he knows “more about Hillary Clinton’s faith than anybody outside her family.” ...

...Under Jones’ mentorship, Clinton learned about Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich—thinkers whom liberals consider their own, but whom young Hillary Rodham encountered as theological conservatives. The Niebuhr she studied was a cold warrior, dismissive of the progressive politics of his earlier writing. “He’d thought that once we were unionized, the kingdom of God would be ushered in,” Jones explains. “But the effect of those two world wars and the violence that they produced shook his faith in liberal theology. He came to believe that the achievement of justice meant a clear understanding of the limitations of the human condition.” Tillich, whose sermon on grace Clinton turned to during the Lewinsky scandal, today enjoys a following among conservatives for revising the social gospel—the notion that Christians are to improve humanity’s lot here on earth by fighting poverty, inequality, and exploitation—to emphasize individual redemption instead of activism.

Niebuhr and Tillich’s combination of aggressiveness in foreign affairs and limited domestic ambition naturally led Clinton toward the gop. She was a Goldwater Girl who, under the tutelage of her high school history teacher Paul Carlson (whom Jones describes as “to the right of the John Birchers”), attended biweekly anticommunist meetings and later served as president of Wellesley’s Young Republicans chapter. Out of step with the era’s radicalism, Clinton wrote Jones from college, lamenting that her fellow students didn’t believe that one could be “a mind conservative and a heart liberal.” To Jones, this question indicated that Clinton shared Niebuhr’s notion of Christians needing to have “a dark enough view of life that they can be realistic about what’s possible.” ...

...Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family”), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.

Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, the Fellowship’s majestic estate on the Potomac. ...

...When Time put together a list of the nation’s 25 most powerful evangelicals in 2005, the heading for Coe’s entry was “The Stealth Persuader.” “You know what I think of when I think of Doug Coe?” the Reverend Schenck (a Coe admirer) asked us. “I think literally of the guy in the smoky back room that you can’t even see his face. He sits in the corner, and you see the cigar, and you see the flame, and you hear his voice—but you never see his face. He’s that shadowy figure.”

Coe has been an intimate of every president since Ford, but he rarely imposes on chief executives, who see him as a slightly mystical but apolitical figure. Rather, Coe uses his access to the Oval Office as currency with lesser leaders. “If Doug Coe can get you some face time with the President of the United States,” one official told the author of a Princeton study of the National Prayer Breakfast last year, “then you will take his call and seek his friendship. That’s power.” ...

...Coe’s friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). ...

...According to the Fellowship’s archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship’s God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe’s Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance. ...

This is a very tactful article, which doesn't emphasize, in the manner of exposes I can no longer find, the fact that The Family is Dominionist and believes that God sends wealth and power to the chosen few who are entitled to be ruthless about stealing these from others so that they can exert power freely over those with less of these evidences of God's blessings and permission for their exercise of tyranny.

Yeah, I know, right out of the Christian description of their Devil and his temptations, isn't it?

Thanks to such as these, evil has what is now instead termed a 'right wing' bias - instead of using the modern term, as an obvious pathology.

Edited both to add a missed comma and add that actual Conservatives would never have recognized the destructive ideology termed 'right wing' in America nowadays as Conservatism - which seeks to conserve.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Big Al

Thing is, no Dominionist will.

They teach a basic deception strategy, to pretend to be friendly or to lure in people by pretense so that they can gain trust in order to abuse it by trying to con them into their pathological cult.

As soon as Arendt said this guy was a Dominionist, I realized that that was probably why Rutherford sounded uncomfortably familiar, that there was something negative associated, even though I still don't recall any details about it or him.

I do recall that Dominionism's a psychopath-designed ideology... but only the wealthiest and most powerful forming the inner circle are intended to benefit by the ruthless draining and abuse of others. They've been polluting Washington forever, which helps to explain a lot.

Hillary's been in tightly with the Washington lot since she was a Senator and was influenced by them in her youth.

In this case, they're using the truth to draw us in.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

WaterLily's picture

@Big Al

And it doesn't mean he's not right in what he's saying.

It's certainly instructive to understand the underpinnings of his message -- and prudent to keep that in mind -- but if the message itself is sound ...

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WaterLily's picture

@WaterLily Your exchange with arendt.

See, I'm so glad I posted the essay itself. I am learning so much from the comments, and the intelligent, respectful dialog.

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snoopydawg's picture

@WaterLily

CP has been one of my favorite websites, but every now and again, it will allow articles that they used to not be associated with.
The one that attacked Caitlyn was something I would have seen on Breitbarf.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Meteor Man's picture

@arendt @arendt
I checked out Source watch and the Rutherford website. They have flaws, but I can't argue with the thrust of his Counterpunch articles:

https://www.counterpunch.org/author/johnwhite1124/

Patriots and Protesters Should Take A Knee:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/27/patriots-and-protesters-should-t...

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

arendt's picture

@Meteor Man

I checked out Source watch and the Rutherford website. They have flaws, but I can't argue with the thrust of his Counterpunch articles:

1) grammar is unclear. Who has flaws? The SourceWatch article is ten years old.

2) You draw your circle too narrowly. What this guy said and did 10, 20, 30 years ago is relevant. This leopard has not changed his spots.

3) A broken clock is right twice a day. He has never stopped hating any non-fundamentalist government and working to bring it down. The right has reduced the government to Trump V Clinton. Any moron could criticize that. But it takes an ideologue to do so without mentioning the corporations and Deep State pulling the strings.

Question for you: if the government is brought down, who do you expect to be in charge? People like Whitehead? Dog save us.

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@Big Al @Big Al

True - but Trump said similar, if not so well-phrased, and it's a great lure to gain the trust of those who merely protest anyone but themselves holding the totalitarian power they wish to have themselves.

We're just lucky here to have someone here aware and warning us that he's a Dominionist, which is a psychopathic belief system of everything detestable.

Edit: not sure how I accidentally knocked off a necessary word within two sentences, when it usually takes three...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

arendt's picture

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rutherford_Institute

TurnOUT! writes that the Rutherford Institute "is the primary institution behind a form of Christianity known as Reconstuctionism. The primary tenet of this faith is a belief that America must be remade as a pure white "Christian" nation with old-testament Biblical law as the law of the land. Reconstructionism is very influential amongst the milita movement. John Rushdooney is their patriarch. State-mandated executions of gays is amongst the Biblical law they wish to implement."

The Rutherford Institute seems to be more interested in the Ten Commandments than the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, a.k.a. The Bill of Rights. The cases surveyed almost all centered on Relgious Expression, and the Christian values of parenting, and children. Except for the Paula Jones case, one token freedom of speech case, and a token racism case, the few other cases focused on protecting borderline or outright hate speech.

The motto "dedicated to defending civil liberties and human rights" does not appear to be an accurate reflection of the organization's agenda.

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Meteor Man's picture

@arendt
I couldn't find their blog. Bing turned up nada.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

arendt's picture

@Meteor Man @Meteor Man @Meteor Man

TurnOut is probably long dead. Let me try the WayBack Machine.

BTW, I don't know if you are aware of the history of SourceWatch. I don't remember when I first came across it, (or which subset of it) although I think it was in the 1990s, it was one of the first websites to start collating all the JFK/RFK/MLK players, drawing charts about who worked for who, and what organizations talked to what organizations. (Dirty places like Nguyen-Hand Bank, Banco Ambrosiano, BCCI.) It was quite a groundbreaking website.

But, it is way less popular than it used to be (maybe that's just relative to today's giant sites). I suspect that its founders have long since aged out or moved on. Nevertheless, their database is still valid. Especialy for tracking down thirty year old bums like Whitehead.

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Meteor Man's picture

@arendt
I went to Lew Rockwell and saw some decent articles and some cheesy ones. I can't read minds, I just read articles. The Dominionism link seems a little thin. Ijust don't see this as all that big a deal. My crystal ball can't predict who takes over after Trump and current Gopers destroy the planet.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

@irishking @Meteor Man thanks. Yesterday I did look up the dead link linked from sourcewatch on the wayback machine. Think alike. This one, the second bullet at the bottom of the page under Links:
TurnOUT! list of radical right organizations
http://www.turnleft.com/out/knowthy_orgs.html

Wayback linky: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.turnleft.com

I picked a random day/year, like that spike on January 12th 2012. It's a 302 redirect to http://turnleftblog.blogspot.com :

Thursday, May 13, 2010
Oooh, it’s a “Washington Takeover!”
Anti Net-Neutrality folks are running a set of ads warning that net neutrality would mean a “Washington takeover” of the internet.

Never mind that the internet was invented by the government, and that net neutrality, far from being any kind of “takeover” would actually enhance competition and internet access for American.

Instead, I just want to say, why is a “Washington takeover” considered automatically a bad thing? (well, I know why, because of the hard work of decades of right-wing demagoguery)

turnleft.com is now owned by a domain speculator, the worst vermin to ever live on the Internets. It is for sale of course, the domain and every TLD one could think of. dot com, dot org, dot info, dot greedy bastards.
That's it for my blog sleuthing, I clicked around and read stuff for a while. Seems pretty bog standard blog stuff, left wing version. Okay, back on topic ... I don't have anything to add. Thanks

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arendt's picture

@eyo

Domain speculators. Yuch. They are disgusting, but not really dangerous. Just the kind of economic bottomfeeders, nickel and dime scalpers and middlemen, that you find at the bottom of any pool of dirty water.

OTOH, I have a friend who has held a three-letter .com address since the start of the internet. (That is, something like www.abc.com.) I expect that he will make a few bucks when he decides to give it up.

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Edit to retract anything nice I said based on the impression given by someone I was not aware was a Dominionist.

They lie like the Christian Devil and emulate that concept of calculated evil self-interest well enough to pass for a pack of them.

That's one of the many destructive self-interest groups that imperatively must be rooted out of Washington, politics and policy.

Timed out again, bet this doubles...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

@Ellen North I've never had the experience, but if I see another dominionist I'll surely be wary. All religions to me pretty much the same but this one sounds especially nasty.
Lesson learned.

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Deja's picture

@Ellen North @Ellen North
I know you have issues with connectivity based on country, but I have occasional issues as well.

When I do, here's what I also do when I'm trying to post a comment (after hitting save button):

I open another browser tab, go to c99, and then go see if it posted. Most times it does. Then I go close the one that hung up or timed out, and continue on from the new, updated one.

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@Deja

Thanks! I actually do that when things aren't so slow, but the house we've moved to supposedly has what the wireless provider installation guy terms 'interference' (from what, I've no idea) problems upstairs. They put in a booster, but they put it in downstairs beside the other one (and it's separate, rather than being any sort of booster) and is off-line even more, as well as often registering as being even lower-power, than than the original one, so it's useless.

I've spent 20 or more minutes just trying to get a video to load, even though it can be quite fast on rare occasions. At times like this, I'd rather not spend possibly that long or longer waiting just for another page to show even without possibly multiple timing out/losing connection, (which last is trickier with the Linux, which also has to be signed in all over, when I finally get through to do that) as the page has to wait for and access DDG and then connect with the site and then get me to the right page when it's already crawling and possibly timing out all over the place, just to check...

I suspect that the real issue is that we've moved into a bad area from suburbia and impoverished areas get fewer towers...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

of the American people.

It's our fault because we put up with it.

And this after he discusses quite rationally some of the awful results that will happen if we decide not to put up with it.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver