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| 5/25 |
| 2004/10/20-21 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:34255 Activity:insanely high |
10/20 Hey conservatives- take back your own party please. A bit of history:
http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over.htm
\_ You must not be familiar with the extensive Christian origins
of this nation.
\_ They were mostly deists. The current regime are fundamentalists.
\_ Patently false. Stop reading these atheist internet sites, they
are bogus.
\_ Patently false. Stop reading these atheist internet sites,
they are bogus.
\_ Patently false. Stop reading these Christian internet
sites, they are bogus.
\_ I'm not going to bother to get into this. If one
reads their original writings and speeches their
Christianity is obvious, unless you are stupid.
\_ Most of them, but not all of them. Jefferson
was not.
\_ Indeed a great number of them, but the separation
of church and state was more than an offhand
comment to them. Remember what they were rebelling
against: King George and the COE. Royalty and
theocracy. Two things our current George seems
perfectly happy to bring back. I for one don't
want to see revolution in my lifetime. I'd much
rather see the fucker go peacefully in this
election. --scotsman
p.s. It's good to see you as blissfully ignorant
as ever mr. black.
\_ I am amused that professed lovers of
democracy start muttering about revolution
under their breath as soon as an election
or 3 doesn't go their way. Make up your mind
is the tyranny of {the majority|electoral
college|etc} good or bad? I don't know what
Bush truly wants to do in his heart of hearts
(probably party or something) but the office
of the POTUS is a moderating kind of chair
to sit in. The bigger the chair, the less
important are the psychological particulars of
the ass sitting on it. No one is
complaining about Nancy Pelosi and her brand
of Bay Area liberal insanity, although she is
very influential in the DNC right now. If you
think Bush wants to bring royalty back in the
US, you ve gone off the deep end, sorry.
I mean this makes LeRouchies sound reasonable.
-- ilyas
\_ Ilya, I'm talking about history and vague
worries when I talk about revolution. Our
democracy is far from healthy. The tyranny
of the majority is really the tyranny of
less than a plurality of, oh, 30%? And by
royalty, we've had this discussion before.
It's not direct governmental plutocracy.
It's handing over power, tax refunds, and
a blind eye to institutions and individuals
who could give a shit about the public. If
that's what the subplurality of 30% really
want, let alone a majority of the public,
then, yes, I worry. --scotsman
\_ (a) Saying "all Bush opponents are talking
about revolution" equates to "all
conservatives are right wing religious
nutcake loonies." (b) POTUS itself may
eclipse individual personalities, but it
_is_ a tremendously powerful office,
especially when combined with a disciplined
and determined crew, as now. (c) Who
says nobody's complaining about Pelosi?
She's part of the reason voters are being
forced to choose "less worse" instead of
"better" this year. -John
\_ re: (a) I was talking about Ben in
particular. re: (c) Maybe people are,
but I haven't heard anything, and
certainly nothing compared to the volume
of low grade bile directed at Bush.
-- ilyas
\_ (a) be more specific, (c) a lot of
SF residents have loads of low
grade bile for her from when she
was a supervisor. -John
\_ BushCo is interested in maintaining power,
moreso than any other Pres. since LBJ.
The more petty and ridiculous tricks are
pulled by both sides, the less moral high
ground there is to go around, and the
more both sides sound wholely corrupt and
powermongering. That BushCo has players
who excel at the game while the Dems seem
be playing the Washington Generals merely
stokes the flames against the Pres.
\_ That's because a whole lot of these
"professed lovers of democracy" are
actually thinking, "I'm smarter than
everyone else. I should be in charge."
They're fine as long as everyone else
agrees with them, but if some people
think differently, they must be stupid
and wrong and therefore should not
have a vote.
\_ I am, I should, they are. Well, most
of them, anyway. -John
\_ No, Mr. Leek. It's not some elitist
tendency. It's a compassionate, dare
I say Christian (raised Lutheran over
here), drive in me that actually cares
about the people and the country. Did
I claim anyone should "not vote"? I
would love to see election day made a
national holiday so no one would have an
excuse not to. I would love to have been
required to take civics in high school
or even jr. high. If our voter turnout
even began to approach that of some other
countries, I think you'd be greatly
dismayed at how out of touch you are.
In the meantime, I'd suggest that rather
than be insulting, you actually put your
arguments forward in good faith.
--scotsman
\_ I actually not sure how to
respond to this mix of oddness.
I agree that people should take
civics in school, along with
economics. I'm not sure where
you get the idea that I don't
care about the country or the
people. I'm not even sure what
\_ I didn't say you don't. Read what
you said. See how it's directly
insulting. Read what I said.
Realize I was talking about myself
in defence of charges of a super-
iority conflict. --scotsman
you're saying I'm out of touch
with. All I'm saying is that the
road to hell is paved with good
intentions. I think you're
making assumptions about my
political positions that you know
nothing about. (And what's with
telling me you were raised
Lutheran? Am I supposed to care?
Did you know Paolo was rasied
Catholic? So what? He's still
Paolo.)
\_ How delightfully low on signal. Drop trou and produce
debunk (and not from some fundie site) or eat crow. |
| 5/25 |
|
| www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over.htm Download audio or video of Joan Bokaer's talk on the Rise of Domini onism, or watch it on your computer. "The Grand Old Party is more religious cult than political organization." June 18, 2004 The methods of Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, were c onsidered covert in 1992. Now they are open as Reed is now an official o f the Bush campaign. Souther n Baptist Convention to ask pastors explicitly for their help in winning votes. Mr Reed delivered his remarks at a Bush-Cheney "pastors reception," pai d for by the Bush campaign. The hosts were the departing president of t he Southern Baptists and three other prominent leaders, and the recepti on was in a conference room of a hotel adjacent to the convention. As t he pastors came in, a campaign aide collected about 100 signatures and addresses from ministers pledging to endorse Mr Bush's re-election pub licly, to "host a citizenship Sunday for voter registration," to "ident ify someone who will help in voter registration and outreach" and to or ganize a " 'party for the president' with other pastors" on specific da tes closer to the election. As the pastors mingled around fountains of soft drinks and trays of cube d cheese, Mr Reed urged, "Without advocating on behalf of any candidat e or political party, you can make sure that everyone in your circle of influence is registered to vote." Mr Bush's political advisers often repeat their belief, Mr Reed remind ed the pastors, that about four million conservative Christian voters d id not vote in the last presidential election. The campaign is determin ed not to let that happen again. And the leaders of the 16 million Southern Baptists have already organiz ed what they say is the first major voter registration drive in their h istory, beginning at the annual meeting. But as the Bush campaign escalates its appeals to conservative Christian churches, experts in election law say, it is inviting pastors toward p otentially treacherous terrain where letting personal endorsements spil l over into the business of their churches can jeopardize their tax-exe mpt status. Reports appeared in newspapers around the country detailing the take over of local Republican Party committees, and efforts by moderate Repu blicans to form competing entities. Joe Conason, Playboy, March, 1993 The rich Republicans of San Antonio's Bexar County consider themselves v ery conservative. But the politics of this new crowd ga ve them a bad scare. Not long after the Christian rightists staged the ir coup, the president of the Alamo City Republican Women's club just g ave up and quit. "The so-called Christian activists have finally gained control," she exp lained in her resignation letter, "and the Grand Old Party is more reli gious cult than political organization." the shock came the next day, when the votes for obscure Republican state committee positions were tallie d From nowhere, conservative Christians had grabbed dozens of seats. The militant newcomers are now close to controlling the Republican Par ty in Pennsylvania, too. In June, in the San Diego County towns of Lemon Grove and El Cajon, a sl ate of "pro-family" Christian right activists financed by a group of co nservative businessmen swept the Republican primary for all of the open council seats, along with a slew of state assembly seats. On the same day, several hundred miles to the north in Santa Clara Country, anothe r slate of "biblically oriented" candidates--committed to the death pen alty for such sins as homosexuality and abortion--captured 14 of 20 sea ts on the Republican county central committee. The GOP apparatus in th e nation's most populous state is within a few votes of being absolutel y controlled by the Christian right. Across the nation, in primary after primary, stunned Republican leaders echoed the lament of one longtime party activist in Texas, a personal f riend of Barbara Bush, who suddenly found herself ousted by the fundame ntalists. Quoting moderate Republicans from Goldin's arti cle: ""What the Christian right spends a lot of time doing," says Marc Wolin, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress from San Fra ncisco last year, "is going after obscure party posts. They try to cont rol the party apparatus in each county. "" According to Craig Berkman, former chairman of the Republican Party in Or egon: "They have acquired a very detailed and accurate understanding of how po litical parties are organized. Parties are very susceptible to being ta ken over by ideologues because lower party offices have no appeal to th e vast majority of our citizenry. If you decide all of a sudden because it's your Christian duty to become a precinct representative, you only need a few votes to get elec ted. Increasingly, they have the key say-so on who will be a delegate at the national convention, and who will write the party platform and nominate the presidential candidate. In a state like Oregon, with 600,000 regis tered Republicans, it is possible for 2000 or 3000 people to control th e state party apparatus. If they are outvoted by one or two votes, parl iamentary manipulations begin, and after two or three hours of discussi on about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, the more reaso nable people with other things to do leave, and in the wee hours of the morning, things are decided. Scripps-Howard News Service: "Until last spring, Jo Martin was a relatively nonpolitical Houston hous ewife. Today she's on the front lines of a religious war that has fract ured the Republican Party. Martin, a 52-year-old mother of three, and h er husband David, a stockbroker, are lifelong Republicans but hadn't be en active in party politics for many years until they happened to atten d a local GOP meeting last spring. The party apparatus had been take n over by religious activists intent on bringing "biblical principles" to government: outlawing abortion, ostracizing homosexuals and teaching creationism in public schools, among other things. "We honest to goodn ess felt like we had fallen through a time warp into a Nazi brown-shirt meeting," Martin said. Steven Hotze out-shouted the GOP Chair to take over the leadership of the Harr is County (home to Houston) political apparatus: "The wildest dreams of the Far Right in America may actually be within t heir reach - control of the Republican Party." San Jose Mercury News, 1992, Two articles -- one before the election, one after: A group dedicated to making the Bible the law of the land has quietly po sitioned itself to take over the Republican Party's power structure in Santa Clara County. The 17 Christian right candidates for the Republican Central Committee a ppear on a mailer put out by a Tehama County group called Citizens for Liberty. The flier says the candidates advocate "traditional family val ues, more jobs, lower taxes, welfare reform and choice in education." Some see takeover plan s More liberal Republicans say the Central Committee campaign is part of a widespread "stealth" effort to take over America by starting with little-noticed local races. They cite elections in San Diego County two years ago, when 60 of 90 Christian right candidates for low-level offi ces won election, largely by campaigning through conservative churches. "Clearly the strategy is to control the central committees and then use the central committees to give credibility to their candidates," said L uis Buhler... includes "a call for the death penalty for abor tion, adultery and unrepentant homosexuality." Many of these links come from The Activists Handbook, by Frederick Clark son and Skipp Porteous of the Institute for First Amendment Studies. Ar ticles from the Handbook have been scanned for this site because they a re not otherwise available on the web. The Institute's highly informati ve articles were once housed at Tufts University from where they appear ed on the web, but then they mysteriously disappeared from the web. The se articles document the activities of the Christian Coalition from 199 1-1993 as they began to take "working control" of the Republican Party. Skipp Porteous, founder of IFAS, said he doesn't know why they were re m... |