Posted on 11/13/2007 9:45:52 AM PST by mojito
....Hedges’s thesis is simple: religious conservatives in the United States are incubating a form of fascism that could eventually destroy America’s political and intellectual traditions, exposing the nation and the world to a terrifying form of theocracy. He’s not the first to indulge in reductio ad Hitlerum as he bears witness to what’s going on in the megachurches: viewers of Richard Dawkins’s documentary The Root of All Evil? might remember his opening salvo against a pre-scandal Ted Haggard, in which Dawkins said that a New Life Church service reminded him of the Nuremberg rallies. (Haggard eventually chased Dawkins out of the church parking lot.) Hedges has a more sophisticated way of dealing with religious Nazis; he reprints a brief essay by Umberto Eco on ‘Eternal Fascism’ and, like other critics of the religious right, seizes on Sinclair Lewis’s line from the years of the Great Depression: ‘When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.’
According to Hedges, an evangelical movement in the United States is trying to establish a government based on scripture rather than the constitution. This movement, he argues, is not interested in dialogue or rational thought. It will distort, suppress or otherwise crush the opinions of its opponents. ‘It is not mollified because John Kerry prays,’ Hedges notes, ‘or Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school.’ By the end of the book, Hedges is pleading with liberal readers to give up ‘naive attempts to reach out to the movement’. This is a call to arms: it’s time for liberals to meet intolerance with intolerance. After all, ‘this movement is bent on our destruction.’
(Excerpt) Read more at lrb.co.uk ...
fascism - a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
Exactly how does this term fit the religious right? In what universe do these paranoid lunatics live?
We have to be afraid of the Christians.
I guess that’s because Islamofascism, Atheism, and Secularism are benign, docile forces in our society.
I’m reading a biography of Carrie A. Nation that was published in 1908. Fascinating because of what Nation thought the causes of societal disintegration were then.
Now, let's see, who is clamoring for outlawing arms in the hands of mere civilians? It ain't the religious right. It's the the socialist left (real Hitlerites and Stalinites).
Sounds like the perfect description of modern American liberals.
Christians=Bad
Boy Scouts=Enemies of decency
Islam=Good
Homosexuals=Preferentially needed.
It’s like Orwell’s “two leg bad, four legs good” mantra.
“religious conservatives in the United States are incubating a form of fascism that could eventually destroy America’s political and intellectual traditions, exposing the nation and the world to a terrifying form of theocracy.”
Once again our secret plans for world dominion are exposed. Now how the heck are we gonna take over? The subliminal messages in Coke commercials did not work. The hidden Bible verses in Beat poetry, a failure. The disguised images of Jesus on all currency, a wash out. The churches operating as strip clubs, closed down.
We are running out of options people. Do something. A grand nefarious scheme takes teamwork.
LOL! Perhaps we should convene a secret meeting with Exalted Grand Poobah Ashcroft so we can get our new marching orders.
We still have the crosses hidden in McDonald’s .99 cheeseburgers, we will convert them ALL....
Besides, Church meetings are nowhere nearly as ambitions to take over the US, maybe host a basketball tournament or have a parking lot sale..but now world domination as of yet..
Ahhhhh, I get it: He's saying, "We gotta get our leftie fascists to kill those "other" fascists before they send us all - women, children, minorities, and rump-rangers first - to the Wal-Mart re-education centers."
what traditions will be destroyed?
Abortion on demand?
Birth control for grade schoolers?
Open borders?
Surrender to the enemy?
Confiscatry taxes?
If you read to the end of the article at the link, you will find that this is exactly the conclusion the reviewer comes to. The reviewer, who is publishing a book about American evangelicals, does not think Hedges' opinions are accurate.
Those weren't the ones that came to my mind but, to each his own.
I saw this bozo on Colbert report when his book came out a few months ago and again on the C-SPAM book review.
Cheerless. Clueless.
Laugh all you want, but this type of full court press is having its desired effect.
Even here on FR, there are some who admit to being afraid of the “Christians”.
yes, I was talking re Hedges opinions not thr writers - sorry for the confusion I should be more precise
cheers
Mel
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