UPDATE - see ACTION ITEM at end of post. I've selected 4 of Chris Rodda's debunkings of some of the lies in H. Res 888 so you can send them to your political representatives. I am working on a cover letter, so if anyone can whip one off quick please post as a comment and I'll add that.
Your letter to your rep. [here's a contact link] will serve as a warning and public notice - that you have alerted your representative to the falsified history in H. Res 888 and expect that she/he will therefore vote against the resolution. Also, H. Res 888 is currently in Henry Waxman's Subcommittee, so if you have a rep. on the committee please email them [ list of reps on the committee ]
If you send a letter to your rep. I have one request - could you please either email a copy of your letter to me, at my Talk To Action address, or simply post it here ? And, if you're interested in working on this issue please let me know.
Best, Bruce Wilson
House Resolution Promotes Fake "Christian Nation" Version Of American History
Is House Resolution 888 a big deal, meaning - does it have a chance ? Well, consider that, on December 11, 2007, the soft Christian nationalist "Christmas Resolution", House Resolution 847 passed on a vote of 372-9.
So, this new resolution - which I'd characterize as "hard Christian nationalist" might just have a shot because Democratic Party politicians are terrified of being tarred as "anti-Christian" and they lack the political advisers who can tell them how to effectively deflect such attacks. So, they tend to vote as, at least, "soft" Christian nationalists regardless of their personal religious views.
Introduced by Congressman Randy Forbes December 18 in the US House Of Representatives, H. Res 888 claims to be about ""Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith."
Actually, the resolution is packed with lies - American history lies to be specific.
Chris Rodda - who just joined the Daily Kos and without whose diligence we wouldn't know about this story - tells me she suspects that the following four part "resolution" that follows the dozens of history lies packed into H. Res. 888 has been designed to pave the way for some sort of legislation that would advance fake history in some devious or crafty way and I wouldn't be surprised. Here's part 2 of the "resolved" section of H. Res. 888 :
" Resolved, That the United States House of Representatives...
...(2) rejects, in the strongest possible terms, any effort to remove, obscure, or purposely omit such history from our Nation's public buildings and educational resources"
Help help ! They're oppressing fake history ! - It sounds like a Monty Python skit but, alas - it's real.
Actually, the partisans of the Christian right are quite impressive ; they're out of power, in Congress anyway, but they're always trying. They never miss a chance to advance Christian nationalist ideology even when they're in the legislative minority.
***
The easiest way to make the US into a Christian theocracy is to just re-write American history so that Americans grow up believing that the founders intended the US to be a Christian theocracy.
What's in H. Res 888 ? Let me give you a sense :
"Whereas in 1777, Congress, facing a National shortage of `Bibles for our schools, and families, and for the public worship of God in our churches,' announced that they `desired to have a Bible printed under their care & by their encouragement' and therefore ordered 20,000 copies of the Bible to be imported `into the different ports of the States of the Union';"
That's a lie.
"Whereas in 1789, Congress, in the midst of framing the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment, passed the first Federal law touching education, declaring that `Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged';"
Another lie.
"Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;"
Yet another lie.
Are you getting the picture ?
Those who control the past control the future.
NOTE: THE REST OF THIS STORY, INCLUDING ACTION ITEMS, IS HERE
Why I am asking you to go to yet another website
My apologies, dear readers, for the inconvenience of having to go to another site to finish this story. I have moved the last ~2/3 of this story so you can get and idea of where this sort of analysis and awareness of the Christian right, as a movement has come from - the origin of this story.
Back in late 2005 I co-founded Talk To Action, with Frederick Clarkson, to fill a need - there was far too little attention being paid to the Christian right, not as something to be mocked but as something to be understood, in a deep way, something to be taken seriously and fought.
The approach was that dictated by Sun Tzu, whose writing on military strategy is often required reading for the officers of the US military, and for good reason. Sun Tzu's work has stood the test of time. Sun Tzu advised that to fight an enemy effectively one must come to know that enemy like one knows oneself, and mockery is counterproductive because it only enrages and so increases the energy one's enemy has to fight.
Per Sun Tzu, the prerequisite to the effective combat, or strategic struggle, is knowledge - deep knowledge. The people who inhabit the Christian right are mostly honest, decent, and honorable. What motivates them in a deep way ? Do you even know ? Sun Tzu would ask ; how can one oppose a foe that one fails to understand and honor ?
Talk To Action represents the most comprehensive, most sustained, best informed analysis and commentary of the Christian right you'll find on the Internet or off. There really is nothing else like it. Many of the articles on the site are original. You'll find them nowhere else.
Are you disturbed by the ever-increasing "Christian" climate in America that seems really to be about suppressing minority religious and philosophical views ? Do you want a deeply informed sense of what the Christian right is all about, what it's up to ? Well, then Talk To Action is a site you might want to become acquainted with. It's not flashy, and it doesn't cover daily breaking news in the way many websites do. It provides the deeper understanding you'll need if you're convinced there's theocratic creep underway in America today, the understanding that's an essential prerequisite to effective action.
I say this, by the way, as someone who spent a good deal of the last year researching for MRFF. I've been groping my own way towards more effective action. We all are, and it's a learning and teaching process.
Best,
Bruce Wilson
Co-Founder, with Frederick Clarkson, Talk To Action