Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

commander other writes:

Over the past couple of days, in preparation for participating in this Blogswarm Against Theocracy, I have had several conversations with friends and acquaintances on the subject of theocracy in general. As the majority of these friends are Christians, the conversation always got off to a bit of a rough start, but ironically, every single one ended with my friend's assertion that indeed, a theocratic state wouldn't be beneficial for this country, and quite often included an expression of exasperation at how various state legislatures, municipal governments, and even federal entities persistently attempt to hijack public forums and taxpayer monies to promote obviously religious agenda. For my experiences with my friends, and from what I read online, in the paper, and in national magazines, the Christian public at large doesn't see a need for a theocratic state, and honestly resents taxpayer monies being used to promote such agendas. Personally of course, I believe they're right to be offended by the actions of their own elected leaders and church leaders.

The Springy Goddess

Astreja K. Odinsdóttir  a Canadian with family and friends in the states, is worried about us:  

I have tried to bring myself up to speed on the intricacies of U.S. governance -- Enough, at least, to know of the Establishment Clause; Thomas Paine's Age of Reason; Dominionists; the Lemon Test.

It amazes me and saddens me to see the truly nonsensical debates on issues that were supposedly put to rest centuries ago. To see disdain for scientific method in a country that claims Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison and adopted Albert Einstein as its own. To hear the ravings of public figures who think blind obedience is a virtue and who view the world through a simplistic us-versus-them lens.

To watch helplessly as theocrats dismantle the work of Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, John Dewey, Margaret Sanger.

And I worry about you.

But I know, and history shows time and time again, that you have the will to take back your birthright. May you safely emerge from this nightmare with even greater strength and resolve.

Wall of Separation  

Jeremy Leaming gives a run down on how the U.S.Department of Justice is increasingly carrying water for the religious right, and is staffed accordingly.

Like other components of the Bush administration, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has become a conduit for advancing the Religious Right's agenda.
Under this White House, the DOJ has overhauled its Civil Rights Division to focus large amounts of attention on helping "faith-based" organizations receive grants and trolling the land looking for supposed discrimination against evangelical Christians.

The department's fervid focus on advancing Religious Rights concerns makes its claim "to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans" a mere platitude.

Hullabaloo

tristero writes about Rev. Joseph Morecraft, of Georgia, a leading Christian Reconstrucitonist, and an unapologetic theocrat.

In order to understand what American theocracy is - and why those of us who are worried about it are worried sick over it - you need to encounter it in context and that means reading beyond deliberately tendentious soundbites like, "9/11 is God's vengeance on a corrupt United States." You need to see how the various pieces of their arguments are developed and interconnect. You also need to see how the theocrats deliberately manufacture opportunities to create coalitions with non-religious extremists. And you need to see how theocratic ideas have become not only more acceptable, but actually become mainstream topics of political discourse.

In short, if you want to understand how to confront theocracy - and with a lot of effort on our part on a lot of different fronts, I think it can be re-consigned to the ugly margins of American public discourse - you need to find out not only what they think, but how they think. And that will take examining what theocrats say in context.

Morecraft's book  is useful because it is stylistically consistent and short. Also, Morecraft is unusually blunt and direct both in his language and his intentions. That said, it is not, repeat NOT, "the Christianist Manifesto." It's not even close. There probably is no such thing. The theocrats, for many reasons, simply don't work like that. For one thing, there is so much they intuitively agree about, there's no reason to bother. For another, they are way ahead of us. They know what they want; their focus now is on implementation, not theorizing.

But the excerpts from Morecraft's book will give you an excellent introduction to their genuinely bizarre mindset. It's my hope that these excerpts dispel a lot of liberal misconceptions about the theocrats. For example, what theocrats like Dobson and Donohue mean by "religious freedom" and "tolerance" is very different than our understanding of the terms. By getting a clearer view of their rationales, deceptions, distortions, and obsessions, I think we will be better able to craft more effective ways to fight them.

Independent Bloggers Alliance

Renee in Ohio argues for the secular state, and quotes from a speech by Robert Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, last year:

I see secularism as a sort of a platform upon which our religious liberty and our freedoms rest. Secularism as a legal principle means simply this, that the government is neutral toward religion. Neutral, not hostile. As applied in our First Amendment, the principle of secularism means that the state neither advances religion, nor inhibits religion. Now there are alternatives to secularism as a legal principle. And I would challenge those who are attacking the secular state to tell me which alternative they would like to see us adopt in the United States.

The Quaker Agitator

The Quaker Agitator has some sharp political analysis:

Despite protestations to the contrary by those who will benefit most from a theocratic take-over of the federal and state governments of the United States, our country is, in my opinion, slowly headed in this direction. Initiatives against gay marriage, for example, which supposedly come from "grass roots" organizations, are in fact organized and financed by national groups with ties to the Republican Party. No thinking person can deny that it was a carefully plotted strategy by the GOP to put anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballots in key swing states during the last presidential election cycle as a way of getting out the franatical base and assuring a Bush/Cheney victory in those states. That fact alone gives the lie to the idea that the fight over gay marriage, for one example, is about "morality." It's not, not really. It's about power. Who gets it, and who gets to use it. And who will be victimized by it.

When people use their interpretation of a particular religion to obtain, hold, and wield political power, that is theocracy. That is also what makes the current battles in the so-called "culture wars" different from, say, the Civil Rights struggle and before that, the battle for women's suffrage. Those struggles were about expanding rights to previously oppressed disenfranchised groups. The fights today being waged in the media, at the polling place, and in the courts are about denying rights, rights given to us by our Creator, and about reducing the scope of who can be a full citizen. And that should concern everyone, of every political and religious persuasion. Because if they come into my Friends' Meeting and spy on us as we speak to the Peace Testimony, or when we put into practice the Testimony of Equality by sanctioning a marriage between two people who love each other who also happen to be of the same sex, then they can come after you, too.

Talk to Action

Chip Berlet walks us through the history of theocracy, part I.  

In part two.... we will explore how these historic legacies, transmuted through the American experience, have resulted in the palengenetic push to "purify" our land of the sins of abortion, the feminist movement, and gay rights, (among other things) so that Godly men can establish Dominion (thus the term "Dominionism") over the United States, or even build a full Theocracy. And all this is tied to Monotheism, Dualism, Messianism, Apocalypticism and Demonization--and the Palengentic idea that before Jesus comes back-- Godly Christians have to whip folks into shape.

But keep in mind that most conservative Christian evangelicals do not support the idea of a Theocracy; and that exaggerating the threat or painting all Christian evangelicals with a demonizing broad brush is both wrong and unconstructive.

Ed Brayton cautions us about the overuse and misuse of terms -- like theocracy.  

Frank Cocozzelli discusses what it means to stand up to the inquistional urges of Bill Donohue:

"Give me their names!" Demanded Bill Donohue, honcho of the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights, when the artist Cosimo Cavallaro stated during a TV interview that two priests wanted to display his statue, Chocolate Jesus.

The confrontation took place during a recent edition of Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. While Cavallaro remained dignified, Donohue was bombastic: "You're lucky I'm not as mean [as the Taliban], because you might lose more than your head" he declared, displaying his usual Un-Christian scowl.
Donohue, if nothing else, is consistent, having once said, that bringing back the Inquisition is "... is awfully tempting."

Bruce Wilson explains how Christian nationalism has us (well, some of us) by the brains.

Chris Rodda takes out some of historical revisionist props undergirding the Christian nationalist myths propagated by one leading writer.

Moiv further discusses the implications of the Christian nationalism of the notorious Republican Texas State Rep. Warren Chisum:

Chisum's stunning ignorance of science and American history is surpassed by his bland disregard for the lethal nature of another of his current initatives. Should Roe v. Wade be overturned, Chisum's HB 175 would make abortion a crime. Illegal abortion currently kills at least 68,000 women each year -- somewhere in the world, another woman dies in the time it takes to read this story -- but for Warren Chisum, that's not worth worrying about....

According to Warren Chisum, it's expected that women die from illegal abortion: "I'm not sure that doesn't happen even today. I suspect women try things on their own."

Yes, he really said that. I heard him.

Mainstream Baptist lays it on the line:

Today, all around the world, Christians are proclaiming their firm belief in Jesus of Nazareth and their hope for the resurrection of the body. Today, all around the blogosphere, people of all faiths and people of no faith are proclaiming their firm belief in democracy and their hope for its resurrection. Christians at worship today believe that God sent his Son to redeem mankind from its sins by dying an unjust death on a cruel cross. First Freedom Bloggers on the internet today believe that democracy is slowly dying in America because Christian theocrats have been sending their followers to takeover the public square with the intention of unjustly imposing a single religious belief system on all society.