The jacket blurb says that Hedges, "who graduated from seminary at Harvard Divinity School, was a foreign correspondant for nearly two decades for The New York Times and other publications. He was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times that won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of global terrorism. Heges is the author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America."
This book is a probing look at the various organizations that comprise the Christian Right, and a warning to the rest of us that these people are a serious threat to our democracy, and need to be confronted and opposed in ways that liberals in Germany failed to do in the 1920s. They are highly organized, with millions of members, and have specific ideas about how to take over when the next great terrorist attack - or depression - or environmental catastrophe - occurs.
These folks, with leaders like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Rod Parsley, and many others, are looking forward to the gruesome deaths of all who disagree with them. They also look forward to "total war" in the Middle East. They may look kindly in their pronouncements on TV, but Hedges provide plenty of documented evidence to the contrary.
At the end of the book, Hedges makes an elequent summary:
"I do not deny the right of the Christian radicals to be, to believe and worship as they choose. But I will not engage in a dialogue with those who deny my right to be, who delegitimize my faith and denounce my struggle before God as worthless. All dialogue must include respect and tolerance for the beliefs, worth, and dignity of others, including those outside the nation and the faith. When this respect is denied, this clash of ideologies ceases to be merely difference of opinion and becomes a fight for survival. This movement seeks, in the name of Christianity and American democracy, to destroy that which it claims to defend. I do not believe that America will inevitably become a fascist state or that the Christian Right is the Nazi Party. But I do believe that the radical Christian Right is a sworn and potent enemy of the open society. Its ideology bears within it the tenets of a Christian fascism. In the event of a crisis, in the event of another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or huge environmental disaster, the movement stands poised to manipulate fear and chaos ruthlessly and reshape America in ways that have not been seen since the nation's founding. All Americans - not only those of faith - who care about our open society must learn to speak about this movement with a new vocabulary, to give up passivity, to challenge aggressively this movement's deluded appropriation of Christianity and to do everything possible to defend tolerance. The attacks by this movement on the rights and beliefs of Muslims, Jews, immigrants, gays, lesbians, women, scholars, scientists, those they dismiss as "nominal Christians," and those they brand with the curse of "secular humanism" are an attack on all of us, on our values, our freedoms and ultimately our democracy. Tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a
vice. "
It's a great call to action: call these people out! don't be afraid to confront them. These Christo-Fascists are not interested in dialog, they're interested in taking over.
This book is a probing look at the various organizations that comprise the Christian Right, and a warning to the rest of us that these people are a serious threat to our democracy, and need to be confronted and opposed in ways that liberals in Germany failed to do in the 1920s. They are highly organized, with millions of members, and have specific ideas about how to take over when the next great terrorist attack - or depression - or environmental catastrophe - occurs.
These folks, with leaders like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Rod Parsley, and many others, are looking forward to the gruesome deaths of all who disagree with them. They also look forward to "total war" in the Middle East. They may look kindly in their pronouncements on TV, but Hedges provide plenty of documented evidence to the contrary.
At the end of the book, Hedges makes an elequent summary:
"I do not deny the right of the Christian radicals to be, to believe and worship as they choose. But I will not engage in a dialogue with those who deny my right to be, who delegitimize my faith and denounce my struggle before God as worthless. All dialogue must include respect and tolerance for the beliefs, worth, and dignity of others, including those outside the nation and the faith. When this respect is denied, this clash of ideologies ceases to be merely difference of opinion and becomes a fight for survival. This movement seeks, in the name of Christianity and American democracy, to destroy that which it claims to defend. I do not believe that America will inevitably become a fascist state or that the Christian Right is the Nazi Party. But I do believe that the radical Christian Right is a sworn and potent enemy of the open society. Its ideology bears within it the tenets of a Christian fascism. In the event of a crisis, in the event of another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or huge environmental disaster, the movement stands poised to manipulate fear and chaos ruthlessly and reshape America in ways that have not been seen since the nation's founding. All Americans - not only those of faith - who care about our open society must learn to speak about this movement with a new vocabulary, to give up passivity, to challenge aggressively this movement's deluded appropriation of Christianity and to do everything possible to defend tolerance. The attacks by this movement on the rights and beliefs of Muslims, Jews, immigrants, gays, lesbians, women, scholars, scientists, those they dismiss as "nominal Christians," and those they brand with the curse of "secular humanism" are an attack on all of us, on our values, our freedoms and ultimately our democracy. Tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a
vice. "
It's a great call to action: call these people out! don't be afraid to confront them. These Christo-Fascists are not interested in dialog, they're interested in taking over.
3 comments:
Kent, have you looked into the Fifth Article of the Constitution? There are people who want to have a constitutional convention. Could we use InterMix to bring together red, blue and purple i.e. independents, to have a convention? The far right would not want to play this game, so they would be squeezed out by their own obstinateness. There would have to be an agreement ahead of time about the general nature of the changes to be made. There are actually a lot of areas of agreement between the populist left and right, but some sticky areas.
I think many on the far right would love a constitutional convention. They would jump at the chance to add anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-evolution, pro-gun, pro-God provisions into the Constitution, and they would be far more energized, unified, and organized than any one else. In fact, holding a constitutional convention immediately after the next terrorist attack, or other calamity, is precisely the kind of thing the far right is likely to suggest.
But three fourths of the states must approve anything coming out of the convention, so you are not going to get anything so radical from the right to be ok'd. But you might get clean money reform for national elections. Stuff that appeals across the board. The country is better than its politics - less warlike, less in thrall to corporate money. I wonder if we couldn't get something to take away the legal personhood of corporations. Strip the corporations down to the right to own property and to sue and be sued. No more free speech for corporations. Somehow we have to turn America around if we are to have a decent world. Coopting the right seems like a good thought. Anyway, it could be explored via the universities - get professors to ask their classes to come up with potential changes to the constitution.
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