In continuation of Healing America - Part I, herein is my counterpoint to the Right’s view on health-care reform with respect to the “political aspect” of their comments: “The answer to our problems is not to turn the problem over to politicians but to fix one at the time.” “The politicians can definitely help and we need their help.” “We need broad bipartisan support.” (Read Virgil’s and Staton’s complete text on response to “A Damascus Experience.”)
Procrastination in this response was easy --- because I take no pleasure in critiquing the “Right,” even as I know there are many “classical conservatives” and “moderate conservatives” seeking understanding and resolve to the Republican Party’s predicament. (What I write herein is in no way to excuse any of too many Democrat’s misdeeds or candidates’ indiscretions.) Certainly not a classical or moderate conservative, yet a politician trying to display some sense of decency, SC’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham mustered courage to refute and admonish those who spew the venomous verbiage of ill-will, hate and fear-mongering falsehoods toward our president. I believe Graham came to the realization that if you don’t reprove this outrageous, degenerative conduct, you are a condoner, complicit in its malevolence. He had the common sense to know it was time to step off the “self-defeating band-wagon” of politics.
It is the inexplicable “political equation/dynamic” of the two-party system of the last several years that I have found somewhat intriguing (trying to understand what’s happening) --- but moreover disturbing. More recently in a crescendo the “extreme Right’s” ideological rigor mortis mounded a pile of inglorious defamation.
Lately, this political inscrutability came to a keen focus when I read Sam Tanenhaus’ “The Death of Conservatism” (TDC) published July 09. Tanenhaus says, what we call conservatism today would have been incomprehensible to the great originator of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke. “The task of statesmen was to maintain equilibrium between ‘the two principles of conservatism and correction.’ To govern was to engage in perpetual compromise – ‘sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.’ In such a scheme there is no useful place for the either/or of ideological purism.” (TDC 218-26: referenced numbers indicates Kindle Book locations) Tanenhaus quotes Gary Wills who joined Buckley’s National Review in 1957, and in 1961 the 26-year-old promising young conservative thinker wrote The Convenient State: “A consensus as the word’s form indicates is a meeting of several views on common ground; and orthodoxy is a reduction of all views to a single view. Consensus implies compromise, establishing a minimal ground of agreement on which to base political organization. Orthodoxy goes to the roots of metaphysical and religious awareness and demands a ‘right view’ on these things, not merely a modus Vivendi. (The contemporary word for this is ‘ideology.’)” (TDC 264-72)
Thus, the R Party finds itself taken over by an ideological “religious right” and “neoconservatives,” becoming the intractable modus operandi, “Revanchist Party.” Finally, in its defeat after eight years of strict-ideological rule, the authoritarian ideology ratchets up revanchism, meaning to revengefully retaliate, take back lost territory; “block and tackle” almost by any means, to justify some obscure end. It was less than two months after the presidential inaugurations, on the local radio station the host opened an interview with the local sheriff: “We got to take back our country,” with the Republican sheriff emulating exact phrase. But there are elements driving this revanchism beyond the normal prejudicial, political polarizing-forces. Based on some personal experiences I’ve had in support of President Obama, it is apparent there’s an irrepressible prejudicial resentment to his official-capacity. Let me be clear there are many “good and well intentioned people” drawn into this quagmire, including participants at “tea parties,” “town-hall assemblies” or other gatherings, who have genuine concerns for our country. Even so, many, if not most, of these events are organized, lead and/or promulgated by people of special interest with ulterior motives, designed specifically for a revanchist movement.
The Religious Right: In 1916 the Y. K. Rushdoony family from Europe arrived on America’s Atlantic coast and traveled to California. That year a son, R. J. Rushdoony, was born. His brother had been one of the 1.5 million who perished in the Armenian genocide. A descendent of a long line of aristocratic priest reaching back to the year 315, young Rushdoony was raised on stories of slaughter that uprooted his family’s ancient Christian heritage. In California, he studied divinity, plunged into conservative theology, becoming a minister in the ultraconservative Orthodox Presbyterian church, and immediately mapping out a system to restore purity and order to a fallen world that surrounded him. Rushdoony’s radical worldview intensified in 1950 during the peak of anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy’s show trials. He befriended a candy manufacture, Robert Welch, who shared his visceral hatred of political subversives. Welch used his fortune to create, in 1958, the right-wing fringe group, the John Birch Society. He had gained notoriety by red-baiting prominent public figures such as President Truman, President Eisenhower, and Allen Dulls, all covert Soviet agents in his mind. (Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah {RG}, Aug. 2009, 275-82) Welch actually claimed Milton Eisenhower, brother to President Dwight Eisenhower, was the President’s superior and boss within the Communist Party. William Buckley, editor of the National Review, who had been close to the Society in his support, eventually denounced it as an impediment to the legitimacy of the conservative movement. But with the isolation of the society as extremist, Rushdoony’s admiration grew. “In 1973 Rushdoony published his magnum opus, The Institute of Biblical Law, an eight-hundred-page book deliberately invoking Calvin’s Institute of Christian Religion to suggest his traditionalism.” “He labeled his philosophy ‘Christian Reconstructionism’ and painstakingly outlined plans for the church to take over the federal government and ‘reconstruct’ it along biblical lines. According to Frederick Clarkson, a pioneering researcher of the Christian right, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their (italics added) interpretation of ‘Biblical law.’” (RG 302-9)
Francis Schaeffer (Schaeffer & Rushdoony drew on each other’s beliefs.) was another influence to the right-wing movement. “In 1976, he published a best-selling polemic that inspired the Christian right’s advance guard, How Should We Then live? The Rise and Decline of Western Civilization and Culture. The book concluded by proclaiming legalized abortion – ‘infanticide,’ Schaeffer called it – the final leg in western civilization’s death march. To preserve Judeo-Christian society, Schaeffer implored evangelicals to organize a crusade to stop abortion by any means.” Schaeffer sold Jerry Falwell on the strategic importance of joining “pro-life;” sold the anti-papist Baptist on the concept of “co-belligerency,” or working with conservative Catholics and other non-evangelicals to assail the secular establishment. Under Schaeffer’s guidance, in 1979, Falwell founded the Christian right’s first lobbying front, the Moral Majority. In 1981, Francis Schaeffer, wrote a book, A Christian Manifesto. It called for literally attacking the foundation of liberal democracy. Even though it went unnoticed by mainstream America it sold 250,000 copies in its first year. His son, Frank Schaeffer, commented: What’s amazing about Christian Manifesto “was that my father was calling for the overthrow of the United States government. If his words had come out of the mouth of anyone other than a white American it would have been called sedition.” Dying at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Francis Schaeffer agonized about the rise of the Christian right, convinced he had created a monster. And as the outspoken homophobe Anita Bryant appeared at his deathbed for her blessing on the anti-gay crusade, he angrily rebuked her, according to his son. (RG 421-27)
Joseph McCarthy’s true accomplishment, praised by Patrick Buchanan, was convincing the Right there’s an enemy within, “Washington bureaucrats” and “big government.” It became the staple of GOP politics over the next half century, the raid on government itself: practitioners included Richard Nixon (Watergate), Ronald Reagan (Iran-contra), Newt Gingrich (twice: the government shutdown of 1995 and Clinton impeachment), and George W. Bush (his dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys). These three Republican presidents had strong ties to movement conservatism while three others (Eisenhower, Ford and George H. W. Bush) did not. “The first three pursued a revanchist course in which institutional conflict – waged against the other branches of government or against the ‘permanent government’ of the executive – were part of a broader ideological campaign too urgent to be trusted to the traditional channels of governance.” (TDC 173-81)
Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., an eccentric California millionaire, was another who helped found the extreme, far right. He was left a fortune by his father. On discovering the Rushdoony writings and getting to know Rushdoony, he became a full-fledged Calvinist; he used the fortune to establishment Christian-right organizations and support of their causes. Ahmanson, in 1992, banded four right-wing businessmen to back the campaign’s anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-big-business candidates for takeover of California’s general assembly. The list of Ahmanson support for religious-right-wing initiated groups goes almost endless.
The Christian-right’s movement is referred to as “The family,” an exclusive sect, or as a whole is called “the pro-family” movement. And movement allies are known as “friends of the family.” The Family (or, in some cases, those who high jacked it for clandestine motives) adopted a Macho Jesus, a Jesus who would find no wrong in their strong-armed-self-serving politics. For those fallen from disgrace, being “born again,” gave a special passage to support “The Family’s” causes. Their “political power position” ensures ongoing, loyal, political backing from ‘The Family.” “Born again,” from a dallying, alcoholic, Texas legislator, Tom Delay’s headstrong march through the U.S. House acclaimed the name, “Hammer.” His Macho Jesus delivered him through many religious-political crusades as House Majority Leader. Association with close friends, the revolutionist, such as Ralph Reed (The Christian Coalition), Grover Norquist (anti-tax guru), and Jack Abramoff, added to his undercover political power. In concert with Abramoff’s circle of banditry, Indian Tribe Casinos and Christians against gambling were duped out of hundreds of thousands of dollars; thus, making a mockery of the legitimate Christian Community, good people who thought “they were doing their part to bring America back to God.” Delay, for the Republicans, was acknowledged the official “K-Street’s lobbyist enforcer.” Where Delay operated at 132 D Street SE, DC, his townhouse was bought by The U. S. Family Network, a nonprofit. The Network mission: “To restore moral fitness to American lives.” On a trip to Saipan of Northern Marianas, a U.S., territory, he defended taking advantage of indentured servants who thought they were coming to America --- but were stuck in sweetshops manufacturing clothing for U. S. companies, legally labeled as “Manufactured in U.S.A.” These captive servants of the labor-camps worked for pittance. (Congress had exempted the island from U. S. labor law.) Again, this was to win lobbyist money from the sweetshop operators (one who had already paid $9 million labor-violation penalty, highest in U.S. history), for political advantage back in the states. In a speech on the island, Lay said, “You are up against the forces of big labor and radical left.” “Stand firm. Resist evil. Remember that all truth and blessing emanate from our Creator.” (I incredulously watch TV and wonder how some people can get air time; many people in this nation never knew or quickly forget recent history.)
The hamstrung Party yields to the James Dobson family, Focus on the Family. “When his Christian army reached critical mass, Dobson set them against the Republican establishment, flexing his grassroots muscle to destroy the ambitions of moderates such as Bob Dole and Colin Powell, and propelling movement figures such as Delay and George W. bush into ascendancy.” (RG 205-12) Dobson has spawned a long list of religious-right faithful, including all those already mentioned. To mention just a few others: Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmond, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, John Thune, Ted Haggard, and David Vitter. For those such as Mark Foley or Larry Craig, , it seemed the R Party was a safe haven for egregious, political power while denying (remaining closeted) there true sexual orientation --- adding to the political hypocrisy. Dobson, a licensed child psychiatrist, has no theological credentials, but he is as Alexander Moegerle put it, “a master of clandestine politics.” He has effectively stonewalled every news organization, except Fox News where he is guaranteed deferential treatment from the likes of self-proclaimed “culture warrior” Bill O’Reilly. (RG 810-17)
Pat Robertson, Regent University founder, fired Herb Titus, his founding Law School dean because he refused to stop teaching R. J. Rushdoony alongside constitutional law. Rushdoony teaching, Robertson saw, would have been the key obstacle to Regent’s American Bar Assoc. accreditation.
Mark Sanford, John Ensign, and ‘The Family’ in D.C.: by Becky Garrison: “Presently, the glare of the media spotlight has started to shine on a number of political figures, all of whom coincidentally have a connection to a D.C.-based group called The Family. Stories linking The Family to these politicos have appeared on a number of media outlets including NPR’s Fresh Air, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Salon. Recently, I contacted religion scholar Jeff Sharlet, author of the New York Times bestseller The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Harper’s, to discuss his research into this group and its connection to this current round of political scandals.” The Family founder, Abraham Vereide, believed, “Christians should work on behalf not of the down and out — the poor, the suffering, the meek — but the “up and out,” the powerful “key men,” as The Family calls them, who will dispense blessings to the rest of us. One evangelical Senate aide describes that as “trickle down religion.” So why haven’t you heard of them before? The Family believes it’s most effective behind the scenes. “The more invisible you can make your organization,” says Family leader Doug Coe, “the more influence it will have.”
Few congressmen/senators and certainly no presidential candidate get nominated and/or staunchly supported for the Republican ticket without the “litmus test,” good graces of James Dobson. Each must endure Dobson’s holier-than-the-other evaluation. John McCain was an outcast; therefore, to get tacit support, Dobson’s in-tow-neoconservatives recruited Sarah Palin, who met his test.
Neoconservatives: The intellectual establishment, conservative writers and TV commentator I once esteemed and admired, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., a moderate-to-right- conservative (Host of TV Firing Line and founder of National Review) has now been inundated with neo-conservatism. William Kristol the founder of American Neo-conservatism leaves a son, Bill Kristol, the standard-bearer of ideological purism. Former VP Dick Cheney and daughter Liz, neoconservatives, hold the banner high for “strict orthodoxy” and “revanchist politics.” Bill Kristol wrote in Washington Post, Oct. 27-09: “The center of gravity, I suspect, will instead lie with individuals such as Palin and Huckabee and Gingrich, media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and activists at town halls and tea parties.” Revanchist! Kristol has openly avowed and admonished all Republicans to oppose health-care reform at every turn since 1994. Since, and even before, our President was inaugurated, by the strict-inside-Party-tow-the-line leaders and the right-wing media, it has been an incessant orchestration of the “regulated-no” - regardless of issue at any given moment.
Selected Representatives/Politicians: The “elected representatives” we have are the politicians we’ve elected to make policy. They may not be the politicians some would prefer; but I’ll take them over the Tom Delay/Bill Frist team (Christian-right’s regiment that got obliterated) that flew back on a Sunday night to Washington for a grandstand in the Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo case (known as Palm Sunday Compromise), making a charade of democracy. (The politicians of their type have checked out on “serious negotiation,” policy making, save Olympia Snowe.) These leaders are no longer in power; however, credit Bill Frist, along with Bob Dole, now calling for health-care reform.
Four years ago, when I wrote about Conservative/Liberal Talk Radio, my concern was real. But I never would have believed it came to Limbaugh/Beck’s voluminous, insulting masquerades. It is the hellish, denigration, vilification of personal characters that many, supposedly respectable, people turn to as reliable news sources. Nicholas Kristof writes that “Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves. That’s because there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices.” It may be politically expedient to appeal to the inferior instincts and prejudices of man; that’s been the Southern political strategy for many years. Although, a candidate truly concerned for America’s wellbeing, healing America, will not succumb to unbecoming, cheap, political gain. One of my favorite conservative Republicans, Chuck Hagel, author of America: Our Next Chapter (2008), said, referring to the political debates, “I refuse to demote it to the lowest common denominator for the use of politics.” (When he announced his run for Senate in Nebraska, he committed to two terms only; in 2nd term re-election, 2002, he garnered 83% of the vote, the highest ever for any statewide race in Nebraska.)
Forward: Our problems in this country will not be solved until we have more Hagel-like true-statesmen. The Republican Party will not recover until there are more courageous Lindsey Graham’s reclaiming Party leadership from Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly and their ilk. For their rise has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. Then the healing of America will begin.
Tanenhaus ends: (Whether “left” or “right,” you’ll appreciate his report) “What the times demand today of movement conservatism, if they are to reclaim their place at the center of American politics, is a recognition that the age of orthodoxy – of uncompromising certitude – has ended and will not be reborn anytime soon. At its best, conservatism has served the vital function of clarifying our shared connection to the past and of giving articulate voice to the shared beliefs Americans have striven to maintain under the most trying circumstances. There remains in our politics a place for an authentic conservatism – a conservatism that seeks not to destroy but to conserve.”
Procrastination in this response was easy --- because I take no pleasure in critiquing the “Right,” even as I know there are many “classical conservatives” and “moderate conservatives” seeking understanding and resolve to the Republican Party’s predicament. (What I write herein is in no way to excuse any of too many Democrat’s misdeeds or candidates’ indiscretions.) Certainly not a classical or moderate conservative, yet a politician trying to display some sense of decency, SC’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham mustered courage to refute and admonish those who spew the venomous verbiage of ill-will, hate and fear-mongering falsehoods toward our president. I believe Graham came to the realization that if you don’t reprove this outrageous, degenerative conduct, you are a condoner, complicit in its malevolence. He had the common sense to know it was time to step off the “self-defeating band-wagon” of politics.
It is the inexplicable “political equation/dynamic” of the two-party system of the last several years that I have found somewhat intriguing (trying to understand what’s happening) --- but moreover disturbing. More recently in a crescendo the “extreme Right’s” ideological rigor mortis mounded a pile of inglorious defamation.
Lately, this political inscrutability came to a keen focus when I read Sam Tanenhaus’ “The Death of Conservatism” (TDC) published July 09. Tanenhaus says, what we call conservatism today would have been incomprehensible to the great originator of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke. “The task of statesmen was to maintain equilibrium between ‘the two principles of conservatism and correction.’ To govern was to engage in perpetual compromise – ‘sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil.’ In such a scheme there is no useful place for the either/or of ideological purism.” (TDC 218-26: referenced numbers indicates Kindle Book locations) Tanenhaus quotes Gary Wills who joined Buckley’s National Review in 1957, and in 1961 the 26-year-old promising young conservative thinker wrote The Convenient State: “A consensus as the word’s form indicates is a meeting of several views on common ground; and orthodoxy is a reduction of all views to a single view. Consensus implies compromise, establishing a minimal ground of agreement on which to base political organization. Orthodoxy goes to the roots of metaphysical and religious awareness and demands a ‘right view’ on these things, not merely a modus Vivendi. (The contemporary word for this is ‘ideology.’)” (TDC 264-72)
Thus, the R Party finds itself taken over by an ideological “religious right” and “neoconservatives,” becoming the intractable modus operandi, “Revanchist Party.” Finally, in its defeat after eight years of strict-ideological rule, the authoritarian ideology ratchets up revanchism, meaning to revengefully retaliate, take back lost territory; “block and tackle” almost by any means, to justify some obscure end. It was less than two months after the presidential inaugurations, on the local radio station the host opened an interview with the local sheriff: “We got to take back our country,” with the Republican sheriff emulating exact phrase. But there are elements driving this revanchism beyond the normal prejudicial, political polarizing-forces. Based on some personal experiences I’ve had in support of President Obama, it is apparent there’s an irrepressible prejudicial resentment to his official-capacity. Let me be clear there are many “good and well intentioned people” drawn into this quagmire, including participants at “tea parties,” “town-hall assemblies” or other gatherings, who have genuine concerns for our country. Even so, many, if not most, of these events are organized, lead and/or promulgated by people of special interest with ulterior motives, designed specifically for a revanchist movement.
The Religious Right: In 1916 the Y. K. Rushdoony family from Europe arrived on America’s Atlantic coast and traveled to California. That year a son, R. J. Rushdoony, was born. His brother had been one of the 1.5 million who perished in the Armenian genocide. A descendent of a long line of aristocratic priest reaching back to the year 315, young Rushdoony was raised on stories of slaughter that uprooted his family’s ancient Christian heritage. In California, he studied divinity, plunged into conservative theology, becoming a minister in the ultraconservative Orthodox Presbyterian church, and immediately mapping out a system to restore purity and order to a fallen world that surrounded him. Rushdoony’s radical worldview intensified in 1950 during the peak of anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy’s show trials. He befriended a candy manufacture, Robert Welch, who shared his visceral hatred of political subversives. Welch used his fortune to create, in 1958, the right-wing fringe group, the John Birch Society. He had gained notoriety by red-baiting prominent public figures such as President Truman, President Eisenhower, and Allen Dulls, all covert Soviet agents in his mind. (Max Blumenthal’s Republican Gomorrah {RG}, Aug. 2009, 275-82) Welch actually claimed Milton Eisenhower, brother to President Dwight Eisenhower, was the President’s superior and boss within the Communist Party. William Buckley, editor of the National Review, who had been close to the Society in his support, eventually denounced it as an impediment to the legitimacy of the conservative movement. But with the isolation of the society as extremist, Rushdoony’s admiration grew. “In 1973 Rushdoony published his magnum opus, The Institute of Biblical Law, an eight-hundred-page book deliberately invoking Calvin’s Institute of Christian Religion to suggest his traditionalism.” “He labeled his philosophy ‘Christian Reconstructionism’ and painstakingly outlined plans for the church to take over the federal government and ‘reconstruct’ it along biblical lines. According to Frederick Clarkson, a pioneering researcher of the Christian right, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their (italics added) interpretation of ‘Biblical law.’” (RG 302-9)
Francis Schaeffer (Schaeffer & Rushdoony drew on each other’s beliefs.) was another influence to the right-wing movement. “In 1976, he published a best-selling polemic that inspired the Christian right’s advance guard, How Should We Then live? The Rise and Decline of Western Civilization and Culture. The book concluded by proclaiming legalized abortion – ‘infanticide,’ Schaeffer called it – the final leg in western civilization’s death march. To preserve Judeo-Christian society, Schaeffer implored evangelicals to organize a crusade to stop abortion by any means.” Schaeffer sold Jerry Falwell on the strategic importance of joining “pro-life;” sold the anti-papist Baptist on the concept of “co-belligerency,” or working with conservative Catholics and other non-evangelicals to assail the secular establishment. Under Schaeffer’s guidance, in 1979, Falwell founded the Christian right’s first lobbying front, the Moral Majority. In 1981, Francis Schaeffer, wrote a book, A Christian Manifesto. It called for literally attacking the foundation of liberal democracy. Even though it went unnoticed by mainstream America it sold 250,000 copies in its first year. His son, Frank Schaeffer, commented: What’s amazing about Christian Manifesto “was that my father was calling for the overthrow of the United States government. If his words had come out of the mouth of anyone other than a white American it would have been called sedition.” Dying at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Francis Schaeffer agonized about the rise of the Christian right, convinced he had created a monster. And as the outspoken homophobe Anita Bryant appeared at his deathbed for her blessing on the anti-gay crusade, he angrily rebuked her, according to his son. (RG 421-27)
Joseph McCarthy’s true accomplishment, praised by Patrick Buchanan, was convincing the Right there’s an enemy within, “Washington bureaucrats” and “big government.” It became the staple of GOP politics over the next half century, the raid on government itself: practitioners included Richard Nixon (Watergate), Ronald Reagan (Iran-contra), Newt Gingrich (twice: the government shutdown of 1995 and Clinton impeachment), and George W. Bush (his dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys). These three Republican presidents had strong ties to movement conservatism while three others (Eisenhower, Ford and George H. W. Bush) did not. “The first three pursued a revanchist course in which institutional conflict – waged against the other branches of government or against the ‘permanent government’ of the executive – were part of a broader ideological campaign too urgent to be trusted to the traditional channels of governance.” (TDC 173-81)
Howard F. Ahmanson, Jr., an eccentric California millionaire, was another who helped found the extreme, far right. He was left a fortune by his father. On discovering the Rushdoony writings and getting to know Rushdoony, he became a full-fledged Calvinist; he used the fortune to establishment Christian-right organizations and support of their causes. Ahmanson, in 1992, banded four right-wing businessmen to back the campaign’s anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro-big-business candidates for takeover of California’s general assembly. The list of Ahmanson support for religious-right-wing initiated groups goes almost endless.
The Christian-right’s movement is referred to as “The family,” an exclusive sect, or as a whole is called “the pro-family” movement. And movement allies are known as “friends of the family.” The Family (or, in some cases, those who high jacked it for clandestine motives) adopted a Macho Jesus, a Jesus who would find no wrong in their strong-armed-self-serving politics. For those fallen from disgrace, being “born again,” gave a special passage to support “The Family’s” causes. Their “political power position” ensures ongoing, loyal, political backing from ‘The Family.” “Born again,” from a dallying, alcoholic, Texas legislator, Tom Delay’s headstrong march through the U.S. House acclaimed the name, “Hammer.” His Macho Jesus delivered him through many religious-political crusades as House Majority Leader. Association with close friends, the revolutionist, such as Ralph Reed (The Christian Coalition), Grover Norquist (anti-tax guru), and Jack Abramoff, added to his undercover political power. In concert with Abramoff’s circle of banditry, Indian Tribe Casinos and Christians against gambling were duped out of hundreds of thousands of dollars; thus, making a mockery of the legitimate Christian Community, good people who thought “they were doing their part to bring America back to God.” Delay, for the Republicans, was acknowledged the official “K-Street’s lobbyist enforcer.” Where Delay operated at 132 D Street SE, DC, his townhouse was bought by The U. S. Family Network, a nonprofit. The Network mission: “To restore moral fitness to American lives.” On a trip to Saipan of Northern Marianas, a U.S., territory, he defended taking advantage of indentured servants who thought they were coming to America --- but were stuck in sweetshops manufacturing clothing for U. S. companies, legally labeled as “Manufactured in U.S.A.” These captive servants of the labor-camps worked for pittance. (Congress had exempted the island from U. S. labor law.) Again, this was to win lobbyist money from the sweetshop operators (one who had already paid $9 million labor-violation penalty, highest in U.S. history), for political advantage back in the states. In a speech on the island, Lay said, “You are up against the forces of big labor and radical left.” “Stand firm. Resist evil. Remember that all truth and blessing emanate from our Creator.” (I incredulously watch TV and wonder how some people can get air time; many people in this nation never knew or quickly forget recent history.)
The hamstrung Party yields to the James Dobson family, Focus on the Family. “When his Christian army reached critical mass, Dobson set them against the Republican establishment, flexing his grassroots muscle to destroy the ambitions of moderates such as Bob Dole and Colin Powell, and propelling movement figures such as Delay and George W. bush into ascendancy.” (RG 205-12) Dobson has spawned a long list of religious-right faithful, including all those already mentioned. To mention just a few others: Gary Bauer, Bill Bennett, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmond, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, John Thune, Ted Haggard, and David Vitter. For those such as Mark Foley or Larry Craig, , it seemed the R Party was a safe haven for egregious, political power while denying (remaining closeted) there true sexual orientation --- adding to the political hypocrisy. Dobson, a licensed child psychiatrist, has no theological credentials, but he is as Alexander Moegerle put it, “a master of clandestine politics.” He has effectively stonewalled every news organization, except Fox News where he is guaranteed deferential treatment from the likes of self-proclaimed “culture warrior” Bill O’Reilly. (RG 810-17)
Pat Robertson, Regent University founder, fired Herb Titus, his founding Law School dean because he refused to stop teaching R. J. Rushdoony alongside constitutional law. Rushdoony teaching, Robertson saw, would have been the key obstacle to Regent’s American Bar Assoc. accreditation.
Mark Sanford, John Ensign, and ‘The Family’ in D.C.: by Becky Garrison: “Presently, the glare of the media spotlight has started to shine on a number of political figures, all of whom coincidentally have a connection to a D.C.-based group called The Family. Stories linking The Family to these politicos have appeared on a number of media outlets including NPR’s Fresh Air, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Salon. Recently, I contacted religion scholar Jeff Sharlet, author of the New York Times bestseller The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and contributing editor for Rolling Stone and Harper’s, to discuss his research into this group and its connection to this current round of political scandals.” The Family founder, Abraham Vereide, believed, “Christians should work on behalf not of the down and out — the poor, the suffering, the meek — but the “up and out,” the powerful “key men,” as The Family calls them, who will dispense blessings to the rest of us. One evangelical Senate aide describes that as “trickle down religion.” So why haven’t you heard of them before? The Family believes it’s most effective behind the scenes. “The more invisible you can make your organization,” says Family leader Doug Coe, “the more influence it will have.”
Few congressmen/senators and certainly no presidential candidate get nominated and/or staunchly supported for the Republican ticket without the “litmus test,” good graces of James Dobson. Each must endure Dobson’s holier-than-the-other evaluation. John McCain was an outcast; therefore, to get tacit support, Dobson’s in-tow-neoconservatives recruited Sarah Palin, who met his test.
Neoconservatives: The intellectual establishment, conservative writers and TV commentator I once esteemed and admired, such as William F. Buckley, Jr., a moderate-to-right- conservative (Host of TV Firing Line and founder of National Review) has now been inundated with neo-conservatism. William Kristol the founder of American Neo-conservatism leaves a son, Bill Kristol, the standard-bearer of ideological purism. Former VP Dick Cheney and daughter Liz, neoconservatives, hold the banner high for “strict orthodoxy” and “revanchist politics.” Bill Kristol wrote in Washington Post, Oct. 27-09: “The center of gravity, I suspect, will instead lie with individuals such as Palin and Huckabee and Gingrich, media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and activists at town halls and tea parties.” Revanchist! Kristol has openly avowed and admonished all Republicans to oppose health-care reform at every turn since 1994. Since, and even before, our President was inaugurated, by the strict-inside-Party-tow-the-line leaders and the right-wing media, it has been an incessant orchestration of the “regulated-no” - regardless of issue at any given moment.
Selected Representatives/Politicians: The “elected representatives” we have are the politicians we’ve elected to make policy. They may not be the politicians some would prefer; but I’ll take them over the Tom Delay/Bill Frist team (Christian-right’s regiment that got obliterated) that flew back on a Sunday night to Washington for a grandstand in the Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo case (known as Palm Sunday Compromise), making a charade of democracy. (The politicians of their type have checked out on “serious negotiation,” policy making, save Olympia Snowe.) These leaders are no longer in power; however, credit Bill Frist, along with Bob Dole, now calling for health-care reform.
Four years ago, when I wrote about Conservative/Liberal Talk Radio, my concern was real. But I never would have believed it came to Limbaugh/Beck’s voluminous, insulting masquerades. It is the hellish, denigration, vilification of personal characters that many, supposedly respectable, people turn to as reliable news sources. Nicholas Kristof writes that “Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves. That’s because there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices.” It may be politically expedient to appeal to the inferior instincts and prejudices of man; that’s been the Southern political strategy for many years. Although, a candidate truly concerned for America’s wellbeing, healing America, will not succumb to unbecoming, cheap, political gain. One of my favorite conservative Republicans, Chuck Hagel, author of America: Our Next Chapter (2008), said, referring to the political debates, “I refuse to demote it to the lowest common denominator for the use of politics.” (When he announced his run for Senate in Nebraska, he committed to two terms only; in 2nd term re-election, 2002, he garnered 83% of the vote, the highest ever for any statewide race in Nebraska.)
Forward: Our problems in this country will not be solved until we have more Hagel-like true-statesmen. The Republican Party will not recover until there are more courageous Lindsey Graham’s reclaiming Party leadership from Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly and their ilk. For their rise has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. Then the healing of America will begin.
Tanenhaus ends: (Whether “left” or “right,” you’ll appreciate his report) “What the times demand today of movement conservatism, if they are to reclaim their place at the center of American politics, is a recognition that the age of orthodoxy – of uncompromising certitude – has ended and will not be reborn anytime soon. At its best, conservatism has served the vital function of clarifying our shared connection to the past and of giving articulate voice to the shared beliefs Americans have striven to maintain under the most trying circumstances. There remains in our politics a place for an authentic conservatism – a conservatism that seeks not to destroy but to conserve.”
