We all get them. Our Inbox is filled with well-meaning friends and family that forward us the craziest chain emails to alert us to the secret plans that Barack Obama has to damage our nation.
However, when my pastor, a fine Christian man otherwise (at least I thought so), sent me this link about Obama's Civilian Army from no other than Glenn Beck, I had to respond.
I followed the rule that you should wait half an hour before sending off a passionate email. When I went back to it, I deleted a lot of things that would have been unnecessarily harsh without losing any of the substance of my response to Glenn Beck's totally paranoid fantasies.
Here's my letter:
Hi Pastor xxxxx,
I’m very politically active and keep up with the news on television and on the Internet, where a diverse group of opinions are expressed. I have two political blogs, for which I research and write daily. I saw the story on Fox about Glenn Beck’s claims and I did a little research which follows below.
Here's the part I deleted before sending:
2nd Timothy v7 says:
"For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control."
When you send me emails designed to engender fear and panic, I have to use my "well-balanced mind" to offer you facts to counter the opinions of those that do not have your best interests at heart.
Here's the rest of the email I did send:
Thoughts on Barack Obama’s Civilian Army
From Media Matters:
"We're used to Beck being "out there," but Thursday's show was special. Beck's hour (the second day in a row in which he didn't say a thing about Kennedy's death) was all about the supposed secret army being built by Obama. In fact, Obama's comments about the necessity of a "civilian national security force" came from a July 2, 2008, speech on service, and they referred to expanding the foreign service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps.
"This secret army idea -- not supported by any facts, though possibly written in invisible ink that Beck can interpret -- is a pet cause of fringe radio host Alex Jones, who is something of a leader in the underground 9-11 "truth" movement, which believes that the attacks were an inside job and that all the governments of the world are controlled by a cabal of the uber-rich who want to kill two-thirds of the world's population. Jones has repeatedly alluded to the existence of a secret army being built by Obama, a charge similar to the one leveled by Beck on his show. The difference, of course, is that Jones mostly transmits over the Internet and shortwave radio. Beck has a show on a cable "news" network. Beck's previous flirtation with the idea that FEMA was building detention camps for conservatives is also an article of faith with Jones and his followers.
"When Beck wasn't occupied with scrawling wild conspiracy theories on a chalk board (by the way, it became apparent this week that Beck could use some spelling lessons), he was begging his audience to "call a friend and tell them to watch the show this week."
From Wikipedia:
AmeriCorps is headed by Acting Chief Executive Officer Nicola O. Goren. AmeriCorps State and National is the largest of the AmeriCorps programs, and provides grants to local and national organizations and agencies, including faith-based and community organizations, higher education institutions, and public agencies. Grants assist these groups in recruiting, training and placing AmeriCorps members to meet critical community needs in education, public safety, health, and the environment.[4] AmeriCorps*State operates through Service Commissions in each state, such as Volunteer Florida and the Mississippi Commission for Volunteer Service; South Dakota is the only state without a Service Commission. Each state's Service Commission dispenses funding from the Corporation for National and Community Service to organizations in their states through annual grant competitions. Thousands of organizations across the nation have been awarded AmeriCorps State and National grants since the program's inception.
AmeriCorps State and National members engage in direct service activities, such as after-school tutoring or home-building, and capacity-building activities, such as volunteer recruitment, for the organizations they serve. After successfully completing their term of service, AmeriCorps State and National members may receive an Education Award of up to $4,725. The Education Award can pay for additional college or graduate school courses, or it can pay off existing student loans.[5] Full-time members typically complete 1,700 hours of service over 11 months' time; these members additionally receive a modest living allowance, health benefits, and child care during their term.[6]
We did have a President with a private army. George Bush’s Blackwater was not answerable to the military chain of command, American law, or Iraqi law. They outnumbered the U.S. military forces with over 160,000 members in Iraq.
Who did Blackwater answer to? They answered only to George Bush and Erik Prince, who is now being investigated for arms smuggling, and the murder of several former Blackwater whistleblowers that wanted to tell the government what was really going on.
From the Nation and Jeremy Scahill:
A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."
In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.
There are plenty of other claims against Barack Obama being made.
McClatchy Reports:
In one, retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson says the government has prepared 1,000 camps for its own citizens. He also says the government has stored 30,000 guillotines to murder its critics, and has stashed 500,000 caskets in Georgia and Montana for the remains.
Why guillotines? "Because," he wrote in a report obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, "beheading is the most efficient means of harvesting body parts."
As a physician, I can tell you that those organs die pretty fast without a head being in place to keep the heart pumping and the lungs breathing. Believe it or not, beheading has deleterious effects on the rest of the body.
It’s the 4th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which decimated the city of my birth, New Orleans. Where were all of these dissenting voices back then when Bush was President?
Wait, there was one who spoke up. But it was not about the government's flawed response to Katrina. It was about the victims of Katrina. Glenn Beck said:
"But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims."
Now, that’s a Christian viewpoint.
Actually Glenn Beck is a little late to the party. This theory has been going on since last summer, when Obama was merely campaigning to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Here’s an example. You have to admire the passion of this individual, even if he has an inability to sort myth from reality. Note that this is from 2008!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Obama's Secret Army
I first found out about this idea for Obama's civilian army when my buddy Snooper mentioned it on "A Newt One." And it got me thinking more and more as time passed. Then, on Joshua P. Allem's BlogTalkRadio show, it was brought up again. And I began to really think about the implications, and the historical precedence. What may this civilian national security force, which will obviously be well-equipped and armed to the teeth with the latest weapons of war (after all, he said as powerful and strong as the military) be tasked with? I began to ask myself.
Obama is not very clear on that. The force will be pretty powerful, though. Think about it, he said it will be as powerful, strong, and well funded as the military (as a whole, apparently) which means this civilian force will have as many service members, and be as equipped with weaponry, as the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and National Guard combined. Pretty dang strong, if you ask me. But hey, this is Obama's promise of a recipe for "peace and safety," so let's entertain it for a little while, if not at least for the comedy value regarding his ignorance.
-- End of Email --
As a Christian, not a "C-Street Xtian", we are admonished to speak the truth in love. That is often very hard to do, especially with the pure filth that is coming out of the Republican Party and the Health Insurance industry.
Back to 2nd Timothy: Whether you are a believer or not, doesn't it seem like more Republicans can be described as having a spirit
"of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear",
like Dick Cheney?
I think Democrats tend to display the
"spirit of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control",
like Barack Obama.
It's really not Glenn Beck that drives me to extremes. It's his followers that drive me crazy. It's kind of like Jesus, who is just fine. But his followers make me nuts! :-)