CHRIS HEDGES writes about the dangers of the ever-strengthening Christian, right-wingers who are destroying democracy and advancing Christian fascism...
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The rise of Mike Huckabee as a presidential candidate represents a seismic shift in the tactics, ideology and direction of the radical Christian right. Huckabee may stumble and falter in later primaries, but his right-wing Christian populism is here to stay. Huckabee represents a new and potent force in American politics, and the neocons and corporate elite, who once viewed the yahoos of the Christian right as the useful idiots, are now confronted with the fact that they themselves are the ones who have been taken for a ride. Members of the Christian right, recruited into the Republican Party and manipulated to vote against their own interests around the issues of abortion and family values, are in rebellion. They are taking the party into new, uncharted territory. And they presage, especially with looming economic turmoil, the rise of a mass movement that could demolish what is left of American democracy and set the stage for a Christian fascism.
George Bush is a happy stooge of his corporate handlers. He blithely enriches the oligarchy, defends a war that is the worst foreign policy blunder in American history and callously denies medical benefits to children. Huckabee is different. He has tapped into the rage and fury of the working class, dispossessed and abandoned by the mainstream Democrats and Republicans. And he refuses to make the ideology of the Christian right, with its dark contempt for democratic traditions and intolerance of nonbelievers, a handmaiden of the corporate establishment. This makes him a much more lethal and radical political force.
The Christian right is the most potent and dangerous mass movement in American history. It has been controlled and led, until now, by those who submit to the demands of the corporate state. But the grass roots are tired of being taken for rubes. They are tired of candidates, like Bush or Bill Clinton, who roll out the same clichés about working men and women every four years and then spend their terms enriching their corporate backers. The majority of American citizens have spent the last two decades watching their government services and benefits vanish. They have seen their jobs go overseas and are watching as their communities crumble and their houses are foreclosed. It is their kids who are in Iraq and Afghanistan. The old guard in the Christian right, the Pat Robertsons, who used their pulpits to deliver the votes of naive followers to the corporatists, is a spent force. Huckabee’s Christian populism represents the maturation of the movement. It signals the rise of a truly radical, even revolutionary force in American politics, of which Huckabee may be one of the tamer and less frightening examples.
[b]Hints of Huckabee’s bizarre worldview seep out now and then. Bob Vander Plaats, Huckabee’s Iowa campaign manager, for example, when asked about his candidate’s lack of foreign policy experience, told MSNBC: “Well, I think Gov. Huckabee has a lot of resources that he goes to on national security matters. Here’s a guy, a former pastor, who understands a theological nature of this war as we’re fighting a radical religion in Islam.” Robert Novak noted that Huckabee held a fundraiser last week at the Houston home of Dr. Steven Hotze. As Novak wrote, Hotze is “a leader in the highly conservative Christian Reconstruction movement.” [/b]
When I read an editorial like this one before I post it here, I like to also jump to the COMMENTS section. This comment was outstanding...and yes, what Chris Hedges has written scared the hell out of me!Quote:
Excellent piece, and scary as hell. (no pun intended). Chris finishes up with this, and for the atheists and agnostic among us, if the rest of the article didn’t scare the shit out of you, this should…
• In the end, however, I do not blame Huckabee or the tens of millions of hapless Christians—40 percent of the Republican electorate—who hear his words and rejoice. I blame the corporate state, those who thought they could disempower and abuse the working class, rape the country, build a rapacious oligarchy and never pay a political price.
The tens of millions of hapless Christians are not the ONLY ones among the working class who’ve been abused, disempowered, and raped by the oligarchy. The rest of us, (who knew better) and had to watch them as they haplessly and stupidly put these people in power, (and refused to act to get rid of them, and still basically refuse to act to get rid of them) will be taking out their revenge on all the rest of us, who’ve been equally abused.
THEY empowered this gang of thugs, and now that they finally realize they’ve been had, we ALL have to pay their revenge, except the ones that have wrecked all of the havoc.
So yeah Chris, blame the corporate state, but what about the rest of us? Talk about getting it from both sides. First the corps screw us, and now the Raving Mad Christies are gonna finish us off. Somehow, this doesn’t seem quite fair.
Death be to all of us if ANY rethug gets back in the WH. Ron Paul is just as anxious to do this very same thing. Shut down the courts, demolish civil rights, public education, and all of the rest.
HELLO….is anybody out there? We can’t let the repugs get back in the WH. I keep telling ya’ll, I’m not ready for the ‘after life’ yet.
