Bruce Wilson’s career as an activist is a classic one thing leads to another story.
In 2004, Bruce started paying close attention. He had taken time off from his antique car restoration business to research and write about global warming when the election returns came back. Unacceptable.
Then, in early 2005, Jeff Guckert (aka Jeff Gannon), the male prostitute that attended White House press conferences (and according to Secret Service logs overnighted in the White House with some frequency) was exposed by activist bloggers. Soon after, Bruce and several other bloggers founded E Pluribus Media – an open source media outlet for those of us that want real news.
While working on E Pluribus, Bruce met a journalist, Frederick Clarkson. Frederick's forte was the Christian Right. Bruce immediately came to realize the extent of political power wielded by certain "churches" – especially with regard to their fierce opposition to addressing the global warming crisis.
Bruce resigned from E Pluribus and began immersing himself in Christian Right research. He began a new blog, TalkToAction, and quickly established the site as a go-to resource for anyone interested in learning more about the dangerous side of religion in America.
He’s been doing that for almost four years now.
Until a few days ago, it was a thankless, though satisfying labor. With every sermon Bruce listened to, with every piece of church literature he read, with every email he received, the picture became clearer.
"Dominionists" and "End-Timers" posed a problem – they strive to bring about the end of the world. [ed. Bruce didn't like this characterization, but in other words, they are batshit insane]
Pastor John Hagee was one of the main forces.
Suddenly, all of Bruce’s research was imbued with new value. John McCain had actively sought Hagee’s endorsement; Hagee’s lunatic rants were suddenly more relevant than ever.
Of course, Bruce wasn’t the only person to recognize the import of the moment... With Barack Obama paying a price for Reverend Wright’s comments, the fact that McCain got a pass for his sought-after associations was discussed on all of the major blogs. Eventually George Stephanopoulos even asked McCain a question or two about Hagee.
But nobody had the knowledge and familiarity with the issue that Bruce had built up over years of painstaking research. (Trust me – painstaking is the correct word. Listen to one sermon and you’ll see.)
More importantly, nobody had Bruce’s tenacity and persistence.
Bruce kept exposing more and more of Hagee’s dangerous extremism. And last Thursday, he posted this:
Yesterday, Bruce's clip was everywhere. I even heard it played on Fox News Radio!! McCain repudiated Hagee and rejected Hagee’s endorsement. Hagee rejected McCain’s rejection by rejecting McCain. Within hours, McCain also renounced the endorsement of Pastor Rob Parsely – another hater that calls himself a "Christian".
In the end, one person brought forth the Holy Grail... One person catalyzed the disintegration of an unholy alliance that has been used to great effect by so many Republican politicians. One person crafted the wedge that so many have sought for so long.
There are several lessons here.
The first is that so many activist efforts are humble, anonymous and thankless labors for a really long time before they produce results. Bruce crafted plenty of wedges before he tapped the right one into the right crack...
Second is that stick-to-it-iveness is essential. Almost four years of hard work had done nothing to weaken the fundie-right partnership. Then, in one day... it all came down around them.
Think about it: there will probably be a billion dollars spent in this Presidential race... Every single day is worth millions of dollars. John McCain will spend several days – and his staffers will spend weeks, if not months – trying to repair the fracture between their campaign and the Christian Right. Because Bruce persisted, McCain will waste millions of dollars in staff time and lose millions more in opportunity cost as he spends time talking about this rather than attacking Barack Obama.
Bruce is a hero. BlogPacis recognizing him with a $1000 BlogPac Hero Award. We hope you’ll visit his site and thank him generously as well.
And... We hope you’ll come visit us at BlogPacto help us fund the next award.
Update [2008-5-23 21:53:14 by Mike Stark]: Corrected Frederick Clarkson's name and occupation.