"I am a positive voice for Vallejo and support Vallejo business expansion. I will find businesses to come to Vallejo! We are a "Destination" and great for tourism. I supported Solano 360 for the many jobs it can bring. Specifically, I'm currently engaging developers and county supervisors to bring a life size Noah's Ark project there" --- Solano County Democratic Party and local AFL/CIO-endorsed candidate for Vallejo City Council Anthony Summers, interview with the Vallejo Times Herald, October 29, 2013
"I was totally shocked when I met Mr. Summers yesterday at the Farmer's Market. He stated that he was not behind the actual Solano 360 but wanted a "Noah's Ark" development at the Fairgrounds. In addition, he wanted a "Nazareth scene" for the project. I was appalled." -- Solano County Sierra Club member Joseph Feller, from the Vallejo Independent, November 3, 2013
In one of the more noteworthy and even historic developments in recent California Democratic Party political history, the Solano County branch of the Democratic Party and a local
AFL-CIO have each endorsed a Vallejo pastor, currently
running for Vallejo City Council, who a few days ago disclosed that he is negotiating with unnamed developers to bring a life-sized replica of Noah's Ark to Vallejo, California - an economically troubled city only a short commute by boat across the Bay from San Francisco.
If pastor Anthony Summers wins in the upcoming city council election tomorrow, November 5th, 2013, we may soon be asking, "will that be a union construction job ?" and "will it have animatronic dinosaurs just like the Kentucky Creationism Museum ?"
At first blush it might sound crazy, but why not ? Consider -- given the lasting power of politicized Christian neo-fundamentalism in America, which just helped shut down the U.S. federal government, an argument could be made that nothing says "made in America" better than a Noah's Ark theme park.
But Noah's Ark-based economic development may not be the only innovative approach to urban renewal and the public sector that candidate Summers brings to the table.
Another possibility is a bold alternative to President Barack Obama's admittedly mundane push to make sure all (or most, at any rate) Americans have adequate health care.
Consider Anthony "Tony" Summers' startling revelation, from a June 21, 2012 conference call - which really amounts to the apotheosis of America's experiment with "faith-based initiatives", raising the dead through prayer :
"We have seen so many miracles happen here in our city, and around us, with people that we know -- again, from literally seeing people healed, lives changed, literally the dead raised..." -- Pastor and candidate for Vallejo City Council Anthony Summers, from conference call organized by Ed Silvoso's International Transformation Network, June 21, 2012"
If faith can truly, as pastor Summers claims, raise the dead then what
can't prayer treat ? Broken limbs, cancer, diabetes or severe mental illness are trivial by comparison.
So it would seem that doctors and hospitals, and indeed all of the advances of modern medicine we take for granted, everything that medical science has brought us since the Medieval era of blood-letting and the "Four Humors", is quite unnecessary and, indeed, an egregious waste of taxpayer money.
Needless to say, Planned Parenthood clinics would be redundant too. Especially because, in a bold departure from the official national Democratic Party plank, pastor Summers opposes legal abortion.
Summers' close partnership with internationally influential evangelist Ed Silvoso (whose ministry partners have by some accounts had a profound and globally inspirational impact on LGBTI rights in Uganda) also raises the prospect Vallejo might soon see an innovative trash disposal program which could promote ideological, religious, and cultural cohesion among Vallejo city residents as well.
While leaders in Silvoso's International Transformation Network -- which fosters innovative neo-totalitarian urban renewal projects across the globe -- are touting Vallejo, CA as a "model" experiment to inspire other like-minded and economically downtrodden American cities and towns, the original model was pioneered in the Argentine city of Resistencia in the late 1980s where, as Ed Silvoso describes in one of his books,
"a 100-gallon drum was set up to the left of the platform for the new converts to dispose of satanic paraphernalia. As people came forward, they dumped all kinds of occult-related items into it, many of them wrapped in newspaper. Before praying for the people, gasoline was poured on the contents of the drum, a match was struck and every evil thing inside went up in flames. Many times, spontaneous deliverances occurred when a specific fetish was burned and the spell was broken."
As his colleague Cindy Jacobs suggested [
see video, below] at one of Silvoso's international ITN conferences in late 2008, public bonfires can be an effective way of neutralizing other problems besetting America's cities, such as idolatry and witchcraft:
The ambitious scope of this urban renewal effort - which Ed Silvoso's close colleague C. Peter Wagner has likened to the civic improvement efforts of historic urban renewalist Savonarola, comes out in the carefully thought out roster of unnecessary items and literature to purge by fire, and other means, from cluttered city landscapes:
"C. Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs, Ed Silvoso and, Chuck Pierce, have repeatedly emphasized in their writings the need for believers to destroy or neutralize, by burning, smashing, or flushing down toilets, objects deemed to be unholy, including profane books and "idolatrous" religious texts (such as Books of Mormon), religious relics (such as statues of Catholic saints, the Buddha, or Hindu gods), and native art (such as African masks, Hopi Indian Kachina dolls, and totem poles.)"
Not only does pastor Anthony Summers -- who
teaches courses on "discipleship" based on Ed Silvoso's writing, helps
distribute Silvoso's idea-packed books, and
stars in Silvoso's 2012 video showing the inspirational example of "Transformation in Vallejo" -- come with such impressive urban renewal, healthcare, and public beautification ideas in hand, he also can help reinvigorate American populist democracy, with Silvoso's impressively candid ideas on political organizing:
"The discipling of nations is our primary task on Earth... To disciple someone means to turn that person into a follower of the teachings you espouse... The Romans "discipled" nations by conquering and imposing on them Pax Romana. Lenin and his followers "discipled" Russia and the Soviet Union by molding in a regimented and all-encompassing way the lives of millions with Communist philosophy. Mao did the same in China, the largest nation on earth. Militant Muslims actively take over nations and disciple them a la Ayatollah Khomeini; and even though they do not use the term "disciple", they are making entire populations into followers -disciples- of Mohammad." -- page 42, Transformation - Change The Marketplace And You Change The World
To top it all off, Silvoso even provides an innovative (and cheap!) faith-based approach to that could potentially make the entire city of San Francisco, as an LGBTI-friendly redoubt across the Bay from Vallejo, thoroughly unnecessary:
"As soon as the now ex-gay man came up from the waters [baptism], he was struck by the power of God, evicting the demonic forces that had controlled him for so long and rewiring his psyche correctly to enable him to feel like a man again." - Transformation, page 167
And, while many critics have accused conservative evangelicals of retrograde, anti-science tendencies, evangelist Silvoso brings a breath of fresh air, by demonstrating how such life-changing and liberating miracles can be effected technologically, at a distance, with computer tablets and
iPhones.
In the face of such profound and innovative approaches for rebuilding urban America and even rewiring American brains, a mere 500-foot long replica of Noah's Ark pales by comparison. No doubt pastor Summers will richly reward his Democratic Party and AFL/CIO endorsements, should those succeed in lofting him onto the Vallejo City Council; and it is difficult to imagine how Anthony Summers' future political career could represent anything less than a "transformational" win-win for the residents of Vallejo and, indeed, all of California.
For other, related stories on Anthony Summers' Vallejo candidacy, see:
A Fiendish Strategy To Infiltrate and Break up Traditional Democratic Party Coalitions (Bruce Wilson, October 31, 2013, Talk To Action)
Anti-LGBTQ, Anti-Union “Apostles” Fielding Another Democratic Candidate (Rachel Tabachnick, October 31, 2013, Political Research Associates
Vallejo City Council Race : Democrat-Endorsed Pastor Tied To Anti-Union, Anti-LGBT Movement (Talk2action.org, Bruce Wilson, 10/31/2013)
Anti-Gay Christians Target Vallejo, CA Government, With Democratic Party Help (Talk2action.org, Bruce Wilson, 10/22/2013)
Political Notebook: Vallejo pastor, LGBT residents clash over city council race (Bay Area Reporter, Matthew S. Bajko, 10/31/2013)
Get Straight Or Just Die (Vallejo Independent Bulletin, Marc Garman, 09/19/2013)
Anthony Summers Responds (Vallejo Independent Bulletin, Marc Garman and Anthony Summers, 09/23/2013)
October 19, 2013 Solano County Democrats meeting concerning the endorsement of the candidacy of pastor Anthony Summers (video, ~1 hour)
