I first became alarmed about Christian fundamentalists over twenty years ago. I know that the term "fascism," has to some extent been overused but on the other hand, if the shoe fits... I feel the issue is very relevant to today's state of affairs.
August 6, 2004
Fascist Fundamentalists?
George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Osama bin Laden, Ayatollah Khomeni, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim & Tammy Faye Baker. What do all these people have in common? The sowing of hatred, intolerance, racism, bigotry, and greed! Mussolini, Italy’s version of Hitler and the father of fascism said that "fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." And what do the infamous characters listed above all have in common? A penchant for self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement not unlike the goals of the global corporations hell-bent on conquering and ruling the world under the seemingly innocent rubric of ‘globalization.’
Is the death, destruction, and despair in terms of the pain and suffering caused to billions of humanity’s most vulnerable by those I’ve listed, any less horrific than that caused by Hitler & Mussolini? Let’s take a closer look, starting with our dubious ‘Dubya’ Bush. When the ‘born-again’ bush-whacker George was owner of that Texas baseball team, he brazenly declared that being the son of George Bush Sr. who was vice-president at the time, should greatly help to fill the seats in his baseball stadium. Pretty blatant capitalizing I’d say. Is this the Christian fundamentalists’ interpretation of the Biblical injunction to ‘be fruitful and multiply?’
And what has this Bush-league president given us as a result of his publicly proclaimed piety and stated crusade to do God’s work? Well of course entire books have been written on the subject of the American Ayatollah but for the sake of brevity here I will encapsulate a few of the more salient results. King Georgie the ‘Magic Christian’ pushed us into invading Iraq which his daddy had already attacked and had blown back nearly to the Stone Age. After 10 years of ‘sanctions,’ over half a million Iraqi children were dead but our ambassador, Madeline Albright, said this was an ‘acceptable cost.’ And after the U.N. weapons inspectors had made sure there were no weapons of mass destruction, Crusader Rabbit launched a preemptive attack. And why did this ‘compassionate conservative christian’ send our sons and daughters to die in the sands of Iraq? Let’s see, uh first it was to disarm Saddam of weapons of mass destruction and when no weapons were found, the Bush/Cheney ala Karl Rove & their spin-doctors, tried to fabricate an Al-Quida and Saddam Hussein connection to link the tragedy of Sept. 11th to Saddam. When this feeble attempt to mislead, manipulate, and misinform the U.S. public also failed, all of a sudden the justification for our invasion was to bring democracy to Iraq.
Well obviously the Bush/Cheney cabal have no shame and must truly think we’re a nation of ignorant fools because you need only take a cursory look down memory lane to see that our government vis-à-vis our C.I.A. has a brutal and bloody history of installing, supporting, training, and financing of butchering dictators. Two of the most recent and glaring examples are Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There are dozens and dozens of others in our long and ignoble track record.
Next in regards to Bush’s practices vs. his proclamations of piety is his systematic dismantling of every social welfare program he can get his hands on. One of the first things he did was to establish his ‘faith-based initiative’ which Congress vetoed and which he then ignored by issuing an executive order. This was clearly a violation of church/state separation. He installed his ‘faith-based initiative’ into each of the major federal departments including the White House itself. In brief, this is an end-run around the U.S. Constitution and now the majority of people seeking relief must be approved by Christians who claim they don’t proselytize or require the people petitioning them for assistance to be Christians but I for one, don’t buy it!
In addition, Bush et al have attempted to privatize Social Security, tried to eliminate overtime pay for millions of workers---just passed that one today---has cut medical benefits for vets, has rewarded corporations for ‘outsourcing’ jobs to other countries, etc. etc. etc.
Meanwhile, under Bush’s Gestapo chief, John Ashcroft, our civil liberties as guaranteed under our Bill of Rights have been almost totally shredded. Ashcroft is the Ayatollah Attorney General who, like Khomeni whom issued a fatwah for Salman Rushdie for writing a book he didn’t like i.e. The Satanic Verses, has assigned the ‘Thought Police’ to spy on public library patrons and bookstore customers. In addition, Ashcroft, like his Islamic alter-ego, the Ayatollah, has kidnapped and held hundreds of hostages. Ashcroft’s hostages are in Guantanamo and various secret locations around the world and haven’t been able to communicate with loved ones, haven’t been charged, have no rights to speak to a lawyer, or to be heard by a judge. Just recently though a few have been reviewed by a judge after having been incarcerated for over two years. But unlike the American hostages the Ayatollah held, Ashcroft’s hostages have been subjected to a much more severe psychological and physical torture. We got a peek at some of the examples of Ashcroft’s, Rumsfeld’s, Cheney’s, and Bush’s fascism with the pictures and testimony regarding the torture of Iraqi prisoners under American controlled prisons in Iraq.
One last point on the subject of hostages that should not be forgotten is the fact that the American hostages held, were released a few hours after that other ‘Christian,’ Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president. Hmm? The Iran/Contra hearings proved that the Reagan administration did indeed swap weapons of mass destruction for American hostages in blatant defiance of Congressional law and Reagan swore that we would never deal with terrorists. And we’re suppose to believe that it was just a coincidence that the hostages were released on Reagan’s inauguration and there was no conspiracy committed with the Iranians to hold onto the hostages until Reagan won in order to make Carter look weak and Reagan strong?
In summary, Reagan launched the Christian-Right fundamentalist revolution as well as the free-market fundamentalist fascists with his campaign of deregulation which brought us the Savings and Loan Scandal that wiped out tens of thousands of peoples’ life savings. By the way, Neal Bush participated in the looting during his tenure at Silverado Savings & Loan in Colorado. Twenty years later we have George W. Bush presiding president while corporate America has run amok. Ken Lay of ENRON was a good buddy of Bush’s and was only the most visible example of this environment of total license for corporations to flaunt all the laws restricting business practices both legal and ethical! Clinton was also guilty of looking the other way while millions of Americans were being screwed by dozens of the giant corporations and stock brokerage houses.
Moreover, Dick Cheney’s former company, Haliburton, whom he receives a handsome pension, just happened to be granted the major contract for rebuilding Iraq after Cheney el al destroyed it. Note that Haliburton has been found guilty of lying, cheating, not providing services they were paid for and etc. several times and most recently, they are unable to account for over $8 billion dollars yet, they are still allowed to go on screwing our soldiers who are putting their butts on the line defending Haliburton employees in Iraq. And Haliburton is screwing the American taxpayers out of millions and possibly billions by overcharging us?
Furthermore, Ralph Reed who was one of the most proficient organizers and charismatic leaders of the ‘Christian Coalition’ during Reagan’s reign, I have just discovered, has worked for both ENRON and Microsoft. When Microsoft was under investigation by the Department of Justice for monopolistic practices, Reed used his conservative connections to soften the case against Microsoft.
In his early days, Reed formed a group he called ‘Accuracy in Academia’ which existed when I was in college and which had a very chilling effect on academic freedom and the right to free speech. Imagine my surprise when I learned that CNN, the supposedly ‘liberal’ cable network news channel hired Reed to do commentary on the Democratic Convention. Maybe CNN has subtly morphed into the Christian News Network?
Let’s turn now to those who have the audacity to call themselves Christians and who have basked in the public spotlight but first let me remind you of the seven cardinal virtues which all true Christians are expected to practice not merely profess to believe in. 1) Faith 2) Hope 3) Charity or Love 4) Justice 5) Prudence –good counsel or wisdom 6) Fortitude—Courage 7) Temperance—mastery of our pleasures & appetites.
I have already highlighted a few of the glaring contradictions of Bush and Ashcroft’s professed Christian principles so I won’t mention them again by name but they are clearly included here as well. Pat Robertson has been accused of using funds he solicited from his followers for the building of missions in Africa instead to purchase a diamond mine to enrich himself and when there was the threat of a leak regarding this, he had the mine bulldozed and buried possible witnesses along with the mine! In addition, Robertson via his 700 Club television program, consistently broadcasts his venomous speech nationally. He, like his less sophisticated counterpart, Jerry Falwell, preach hatred, intolerance, and the righteous persecution of women who have abortions, homosexuals as perverted immoral sub-humans, hatred of Muslims, liberals as conspirators seeking to destroy America and persecutors of Christians, etc. etc. etc. And Robertson & Falwell never utter a single word of criticism for George Bush no matter how many Americans are fired from their jobs, have no health insurance, can’t get unemployment or welfare, and choose to completely ignore or deny the suffering and deaths of millions worldwide caused by Bush and his corporate crime partners. In fact, Robertson and Falwell sing Bush’s praises continuously and are directly responsible for the blind allegiance of possibly 70 million American Christians to Bush in large part for three basic goals he promises to bring about i.e. an end to legal abortions, breaking down the wall of separation between church and state, and the absolute support of Israel because they are growing impatient for the Biblical prophecy of Armageddon and are actively working to exacerbate the war between Israel and Palestine in hopes of igniting a nuclear holocaust!
Now Jimmy Swaggart and Jim & Tammy Faye Baker also spread the gospel of hatred and intolerance but they weren’t as clever or powerful as Robertson and Falwell in the building of their personal financial empires. Swaggart was busted for frequenting prostitutes and went to jail I believe? Jim Baker went to jail for embezzlement because him and Tammy Faye were living the lives of jet-setters complete with mansions, fancy cars, and luxurious wardrobes. Tammy somehow beat the rap---maybe it was the batting of her 3" eye-lashes or her caked-on makeup that won the judge over? Anyway, through her public act of contrition, she is back on t.v. and still bringing in the donations from the millions of fundamentalist fools and morons.
In conclusion, this motley crew of characters have in common their unbridled greed and lust for power over others. They are also all megolomaniacs in that they can’t get enough attention and have totally blinded themselves to their gross lack of compassion for the rest of humanity which I believe was the central and overwhelmingly dominant tenet of Jesus’ teachings. While some fascists rise to power championing national interests and superiority, others rise to power disguised in the cloaks of preachers of Christian or Islamic virtues. What did the Bible warn Christians of? Beware the anti-Christ! But then again, we’re not suppose to throw around terms like fascist and the anti-Christ because that’s too extremist or radical. Well I argue that the death of millions needlessly around the world due to the greed of global corporations which have been aided significantly by politicians and preachers demands outrage and besides, I am not a passive phony Christian who is willing to turn my other cheek to my enemy or to the enemies of mankind! I call them like I see them!
And no, I haven’t forgotten the crimes of communism. Stalin’s crimes rivaled and even may have surpassed those of Hitler but to defend capitalism by pointing out the crimes of the communists is a simplistic attempt to distract us from our own crimes and is no excuse for the hypocrisy of the so-called Christian nations! I’ll leave you with two quotes which are very relevant here: "Religion is what the common people see as true, the wise people see as false, and the rulers see as useful." (Seneca) And, "The largest state in America is the state of denial." (Anonymous)