MAJESTIC 12

Operation Majestic-12 was established by special classified presidential order on September 24, 1947 at the recommendation of Secretary of Defense James Forrestal and Dr. Vannevar Bush, Chairman of the Joint Research and Development Board. The goal of the group was to exploit everything they could from recovered alien technology. They created a liaison between the U.S. government and extraterrestrial civilizations. *The military has dozens of dead aliens on ice at installations nationwide, and also dozens of downed alien spacecraft, which are routinely test-flown at a secret part of Nevada's Nellis Air Force Base known only as Area 51.

The top secret government organization known as "Majestic 12," was a cabal of some of history's most prominent names, which was in charge of protecting what the government knew about extraterrestrials and flying saucers. And according to the documents, "what the government knew" was rather a lot.

Majestic 12 was run by a clique of military and scientific personnel. Some of the names on the list were very well-known indeed. Others were not. In fact, some of the names were so obscure that the researchers examining the papers hadn't ever heard of them, although their existence (and credentials) would rapidly be confirmed.

The documents laid out an impressive board of directors for Majestic. In addition to Forrestal, the list included:

* Dr. Vannevar Bush, who was chairman of the World War II National Defense Research Commission and Office of Scientific Research and Development. (MORE) (The UFO Connection)

* Rear Admiral-Roscoe Hillenkoetter, director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1947 to 1950.
(MORE) (The UFO Connection)

* Air Force General Nathan F. Twining.

* Air Force General Hoyt Vandenburg, who was director of the CIA shortly before the group's "official" formation.

* Navy Rear Admiral Sidney Souers, former director of Naval Intelligence and the first director of Central Intelligence.

* Scientists Lloyd Berkner, Jerome Hunsaker and Detlev Bronk.

* Assistant Assistant Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray (who would later become CIA psy-ops chief).

* Major General Robert M. Montague, who commanded atomic weapons research at a classified base in Albequerque, NM (and whose primary claim to fame otherwise is the appearance of his name on the Majestic documents).

* Donald Menzel, a prominent Harvard astrophysics professor, most famous for his strident attacks on the intelligence of UFO believers.

PHOTOS OF MAJESTIC 12 PERSONNEL

THE FBI SAYS THIS IS BOGUS

THE DOCUMENTS

THE ROSWELL WITNESSES

UFOs, Aliens and Secrets
Former Government Employees Say
It’s Time to Reveal Evidence

May 10, 2002 — They're out there — and the government knows.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Military Denies UFOs Alien Energy?

That's according to a group of about 20 former government workers, many of them military and security officials, who stepped forward on Wednesday to say they had witnessed evidence of aliens and unidentified flying objects and called for congressional hearings about such sightings.

"These testimonies establish once and for all that we are not alone," said Steven Greer, director of the Disclosure Project, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to disclosing alleged alien sightings.

Greer, who organized the program at the National Press Club in Washington, argued that the United States and other governments have known about UFOs for at least 50 years and have been keeping the information secret.

Greer said there were some 400 witnesses who claim to have firsthand experience with UFO sightings or alien evidence, and are willing to testify before Congress.

Among them is Daniel Sheehan, a well-known Washington lawyer who is acting as counsel for members of Greer's group.

Sheehan told reporters that during the Carter administration he found out about government-held UFO information that then-CIA Director George Bush, father of the current president, would not release.

Sheehan said he was then led into the National Archives, where he was shown photographs of captured UFOs, complete with what appeared to be alien writing symbols, but he was only allowed to take notes on a yellow legal pad. He traced the photos onto the cardboard back of his pad, he said.

International UFO Cabal?
James Oberg, an ABCNEWS space consultant and retired NASA engineer, says Greer has long argued "there's this bizarre theory that there is a worldwide real X-file cabal that is using UFO technology."

But Oberg noted not every witness attending the conference necessarily subscribed to Greer's theory, and says those attending the press conference shouldn't be mocked.

"People see strange things they can't understand, and that can't be explained either then or in hindsight, and it's good to keep documenting these, because often the mysterious sightings are things of interest, to military intelligence or even to science."

Oberg says people sometimes can be too quick to conclude that the explanation is little green men.

"Often, I've seen people jump to conclusions about what they saw, because, after all, to have been scared by a distant fireball can be embarrassing but to have encountered an alien space ship is more exciting."

Military Denies UFOs

The U.S. government repeatedly has denied having any evidence of alien species, though it investigated UFOs for decades.

The Air Force was responsible for investigating alleged sightings for the military. From 1947 to 1969, the service's Project Blue Book at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, investigated 12,618 reported sightings. It said it found explanations for all but 701, such as swamp gas, airplane lights, weather balloons and other natural phenomena.

Sightings for which explanations couldn't be determined were categorized as sketchy reports that couldn't be pinned down.

In 1997, the Air Force announced it was formally closing its nearly 50-year investigation into the alleged alien sighting at Roswell, N.M. It denied that there was evidence of a UFO at Roswell and that the military covered it up.

"Information obtained through exhaustive records searches and interviews indicated the material recovered near Roswell was consistent with a balloon device of the type used in a then-classified project," said a Pentagon statement. "No records indicated, or even hinted at, the recovery of 'alien' bodies or extraterrestrial materials."

Alien Energy?

In another statement Wednesday, Donna Hare, a former NASA contract employee, said that Apollo astronauts saw an alien craft when they landed on the moon, but were told not to reveal it. Hare's source was a man who had been quarantined with the astronauts.

Former Air Force Maj. George Filer III told reporters that when he was at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, an alien craft came down, and an alien got out and was shot by a military policeman.

"Our security police went out there and found him at the end of the runway dead," Filer said.

"They asked me to brief the general staff," he said, but was later told not to. He said he would tell the story in front of Congress.

Filer is not new to UFO sightings. He has his own Web site called Filer's Files, where he says he also chased an alien ship over England when flying for the U.S. Air Force.

"I personally have observed a UFO both visually and on radar. I've been chasing them ever since," he writes.

Greer said extraterrestrials could provide a new, plentiful source of energy that would supply the world's energy needs.

Information from alien encounters, said Greer, could also have significant impact on the global environment and the quest for world peace.

ABCNEWS' Katelynn Raymer in Washington and David Ruppe in New York contributed to this report.

DISCLOSURE PROJECT

THE CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTIONIST CABAL

Vast, Right-Wing Cabal?

Meet the Most Powerful Conservative Group You've Never Heard Of

By Marc J. Ambinder

W A S H I N G T O N, May 2 — When Steve Baldwin, the executive director of an organization with the stale-as-old-bread name of the Council for National Policy, boasts that "we control everything in the world," he is only half-kidding.

Half-kidding, because the council doesn't really control the world. The staff of about eight, working in a modern office building in Fairfax, Va., isn't even enough for a real full-court basketball game.

But also half-serious because the council has deservedly attained the reputation for conceiving and promoting the ideas of many who in fact do want to control everything in the world.

For many liberals, the 22-year-old council is very dangerous and dangerously secretive, and has fueled conspiratorial antipathy. The group wants to be the conservative version of the Council on Foreign Relations, but to some, CNP members — among the brightest lights of the hard right — are up to no good. The CNP meets this weekend at a Washington location known to fewer insiders than the identity of the vice president's undisclosed chunk of bedrock.

Look for them if you're at a ritzy hotel in Tyson's Corner, Va.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is the headliner. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales will speak, as will Timothy Goeglein, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. There have been no public announcements, and there won't be. The 500 or so members will hear private, unvarnished presentations.

White House spokeswoman Anne Womack said Gonzales' remarks would not be released. The CNP's bylaws keep out the press and prevent disclosure of the transcribed proceedings — unless all the speakers give their assent. Few do.

In a 2000 filing with the Internal Revenue Service, the CNP says it holds "educational conferences and seminars for national leaders in the field of business, government, religion and academia." It says it produces a weekly newsletter keeping members abreast of developments, and a biyearly collection of speeches. Executive Director Morton Blackwell was paid a little more than $70,000. The organization took in more than $732,000.

Baldwin said he doesn't get many calls from the press. But he's happy to answer some basic questions.

Of the group's reputation, he said, "There's a lot of stuff out there claiming we're a lot more than we are."

What they are — or rather, what sway they hold — is a source of some dispute.

In 1999, candidate George W. Bush spoke before a closed-press CNP session in San Antonio. His speech, contemporaneously described as a typical mid-campaign ministration to conservatives, was recorded on audio tape.

(Depending on whose account you believe, Bush promised to appoint only anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court, or he stuck to his campaign "strict constructionist" phrase. Or he took a tough stance against gays and lesbians, or maybe he didn't).

The media and center-left activist groups urged the group and Bush's presidential campaign to release the tape of his remarks. The CNP, citing its bylaws that restrict access to speeches, declined. So did the Bush campaign, citing the CNP.

Shortly thereafter, magisterial conservatives pronounced the allegedly moderate younger Bush fit for the mantle of Republican leadership.

The two events might not be connected. But since none of the participants would say what Bush said, the CNP's kingmaking role mushroomed in the mind's eye, at least to the Democratic National Committee, which urged release of the tapes.

Partly because so little was known about CNP, the hubbub died down.

The CNP Against Liberalism

The CNP describes itself as a counterweight against liberal domination of the American agenda.

That countering is heavy and silent, in part because few people, outside its members, seem to know what the group is, what it does, how it raises money, and how interlocked it has become in the matrix of conservative activism. Conservative, it clearly is.

Unlike other groups that meet in darkened chambers, the CNP doesn't seem to favor, as a matter of policy and choice of guests, one-worlders, secular humanists, or multicultural multilateralists.

According to one of its most prominent members (who asked that his name not be used), the CNP is simply and nothing but a self-selected, conservative counterweight to the influential center-left establishment.

Panel topics at this year's convention hew to the CNP's world view, but Baldwin, who wouldn't give specifics, said they reflected many different vantage points.

"We'll probably discuss some of the hot issues that are relevant today. The Middle East … We'll have a number of speakers from different perspectives. We're not of all one like mind when it comes to what's going on there."

He continued: "Worldwide terrorism. Campaign finance reform. Generally, we kind of mirror what's going on in society. We pride ourselves on being relevant and timely, so that members want to come to our meetings."

Still, the group's shadowy reputation deters some high-profile figures from speaking before it — those who directly influence policy.

For example: A knowledgeable person lists former CIA Director James Woolsey as a Friday night speaker and says that on Saturday, Reagan defense official Frank Gaffney will debate former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan about Israel.

The cavalcade of "formers" resembles nothing more formidable than a Fox News prime-time guest lineup.

In the 1990s, social issues tended to dominate the panels, and guests tended to be talking heads who were plugged in to policy circles, rather than operating from within them.

The concoction of federalism, economic growth, social traditionalism, religious activism and anti-secularism goes down well among members because it is spiced with disdain for a common enemy: the creeping influence of political and philosophical liberalism.

Many current and former members politely said they would prefer not to speak on the organization's behalf. Those who did respond to telephone and e-mail messages declined to talk about their interest in the organization. More than a dozen did not respond at all.

"Obviously, membership would imply that there is a commonality, so that goes without saying," said Alvin Williams, CEO of a political action committee that promotes black conservatives. "I don't think it is anything threatening at all."

He declined to elaborate.

Darla St. Martin, associate executive director of the National Right to Life, would only say, "Since everyone else is so skeptical [about speaking], I don't think I should."

Even Judicial Watch's Larry Klayman, the watchdog and open government proponent, would not comment, a spokesman said. His busy schedule — four depositions in two days — precluded a short telephone interview.

Gary Bauer, the former presidential candidate and ubiquitous media presence, asked a spokesman to decline a request for an interview about the CNP, citing the group's long-standing policy against press publicity.

Judging by its 1998 membership roster, which was obtained by a secular watchdog group called the Institute for First Amendment Studies and posted on its Web site, the New Right's many colors are represented, but there are few, if any, neo-conservatives, Republican moderates and libertarians.

Selective name dropping doesn't juice up a conspiracy. The evidence that the CNP is an axis of nefarity is slim. Conservative groups are quick to point out that liberal watchdogs like Common Cause have a great influence in public policy debates, and, for instance, a direct hand in writing the campaign-finance legislation.

A New Force in the Age of Reagan

But even CNP backers claim that the liberal establishment has nothing comparable — no central gathering of its powerful members. The idea for CNP gestated since the late 1960s, when the American Right, aiming for more cake, desired a vigorous voice to influence policy and elite opinion at the margins. Intellectuals it had, but practical policy seminars were missing. The Moral Majority flashed into being after Roe vs. Wade, but it was oriented toward Middle America, not to not-liberal Washington power-brokers.

CNP was conceived in 1981 by at least five fathers, including the Rev. Tim LaHaye, an evangelical preacher who was then the head of the Moral Majority. (LaHaye is the co-author of the popular Left Behind series that predicts and subsequently depicts the Apocalypse). Nelson Baker Hunt, billionaire son of billionaire oilman H.L. Hunt (connected to both the John Birch Society and to Ronald Reagan's political network), businessman and one-time murder suspect T. Cullen Davis, and wealthy John Bircher William Cies provided the seed money.

Top Republicans were quickly recruited to fill in the gaps; hard-right thinkers met up with sympathetic politicians. And suddenly, the right had a counterpart to liberal policy groups. Christian activist Paul Weyrich took responsibility for bringing together the best minds of conservatism, and his imprint on the group's mission is unmistakable: It provided a forum for religiously engaged conservative Christians to influence the geography of American political power.

At its first meeting in May of 1981, the CNP gave an award to Reagan budget guru David Stockman, strategized about judicial appointments, and reveled in its newness.

Since then, at thrice-yearly conventions, the CNP has functioned as a sausage factory for conservative ideas of a particular goût: strong affirmations of military power, Christian heritage, traditional values, and leave-us-alone-get-off-our-backs legislation. That red meat is seasoned by groups like David Keene's American Conservative Union, researched and vetted by conservative policy groups, chewed on and tested at statewide activist meetings.

There's no denying their influence: Money is transferred from benefactor to worthy cause. Aspirants meet benefactors.

The CNP helped Christian conservatives take control of the Republican state party apparati in Southern and Midwestern states. It helped to spread word about the infamous "Clinton Chronicles" videotapes that linked the president to a host of crimes in Arkansas.

But the CNP is one factory among many. It stands out nowadays because it prefers not to stand out.

Unlike, say, the Heritage Foundation, which has a media studio in its headquarters, or the American Enterprise Institute, which publishes journals, the CNP is content to operate in the alleyways of downtown Washington. Part of what keeps it so healthy, according to current members, is the same penchant for secrecy that drives outsiders crazy.

As then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton prepared to tell NBC News' Katie Couric that her husband was a victim of a "vast, right-wing conspiracy," a senior Clinton adviser asked Skipp Porteous, then the head of a secular watchdog group, for information on the CNP. Porteous' conclusions — "that this is a group that has the ideology, the money and the political backing to cause social change in the United States" — became a part of the White House litany.

Such talk is an apparition, members say. Much ado about nothing.

CNP will forever be nothing more than a "comfortable place" for like-minded folks to brainstorm, one member said.

"What they decided at one point was that people will simply feel more at ease," said another member, Balint Vazsonyi, who joined the group in 1997. "It's certainly not for a political reason. The views discussed here are among those you see on the television or when you open a newspaper."

Vazsonyi, a concert pianist who writes a column syndicated by Knight-Ridder, said CNP gave him a chance to meet people who shared his views.

"I knew very, very few people in the political world. I knew lots of musicians, but nobody in politics. Then someone said to me, 'There's a place for people who are and have been interested in what you're interested in, and you might like to be known by them.'

"That," he said, "was really the hook."

Quiet — Just the Way They Like It

CNP may simply be press-shy because of traditional qualms about the establishment media's secular, often politically liberal perspective, and because "they attribute things that individual members may do to us," Baldwin says.

The London Guardian linked arch-conservative gun-rights activist Larry Pratt with Attorney General John Aschroft by saying "the two men know each another from a secretive but highly influential right-wing religious group called the Council for National Policy."

More recently, when California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon disclosed his campaign's contributors, The Associated Press made sure to note that four members of CNP had donated to Simon's campaign — as if conservatives donating to conservatives was worthy of a news story all its own. (Simon's father, the former treasury secretary, was a CNP member).

Other CNP press leaks have been less the product of liberal media snooping than of internal jockeying. When James Dobson, president of Focus on the Family, told a CNP gathering in 1998 that he was thinking of withdrawing support for the Republican Party, rival conservative leaders made sure the national media got word of the speech.

The CNP remains obscure. Experienced Washingtonians often mistake them for another organization, the liberal Center for National Policy. The Washington Times reported Jan. 23 that Sen. John Kerry spoke to the Council for National Policy about AWNR drilling, when, in fact, the Massachusetts Democrat spoke to the Center for National Policy, a very different organization. Both the Council and Center are not to be confused with the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Or the National Center for Policy Analysis.

Porteous' group, The Institute for First Amendment Studies, posted the CNP's roster on its Web site and managed to slip past security at several CNP meetings throughout the 1990s and soon published details notes of the proceedings.

If their summaries are reliable — and the IFAS swears they are — the from-the-fly-on-the-wall thrill and the occasional agitated quotation for Democratic opposition research files do little to sustain the belief that the CNP is ruling America behind those French doors of the Fairfax hotel conference rooms.

"There's nothing wrong with what they are doing," Porteous said. "It's just that they're ultraconservative and a lot of people don't agree with that."

"I don't think they are out there pounding their chests," said Joel Kaplan, a Syracuse University journalism professor who has studied CNP's ties to conservative projects. "But I don't think that they're hiding either."

Who's Who at the CNP

According to a membership roster obtained by Institute for First Amendment Studies, notable former and current Council for National Politics members include:

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. (Both are no longer members).

Christian businessmen like Holland and Jeffrey Coors, of the brewing company, and entrepreneur and Orlando Magic owner Rich DeVos.

Two of fundamentalist Christianity's most prominent end-of-the-world theologists: John Ankerberg, who believes that biblical prophecies were literal promises and are coming true; and Dave Breese, who hosts The King Is Coming, a show devoted entirely to Christian eschatology. Also: Chuck Missler, an Idaho radio host who has predicted an imminent invasion of Jerusalem by forces guided by the Antichrist.

Former presidential candidate and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson; former Texas GOP Rep. Steve Stockman, who stunned the political world in 1994 by ousting House Judiciary Chairman Jack Brooks from his seat; the Rev. Don Wildmon of the American Family Association.

Christian reconstructionists like Rousas J. Rushdoony.

Williams, the founder of BAMPAC, a political action committee that promotes black conservatism.

Sam Moore, president of Thomas Nelson, the country's most successful Christian book publishing company.

Prominent creationist Henry Morris; political scientist Dora Kingsley; Red Cross board member Ann Drexel; Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead.

Center-right coalitionist Grover Norquist and values activist Phyllis Schlafly.

Oliver North, whose speeches to CNP members during the height of his involvement in Iran-Contra stirred up debate.

Hidden identities aren't just for Halloween!

Posted by Eric Scheie on October 30, 2003 07:34 AM (See all posts by Eric Scheie)
Filed under: Et Cetera, Et Cetera: Politics

Things are getting to the point where if you dislike socialism as much as you dislike moral conservatism, you have no place in either the Republican or Democratic Party.

American politics are now driven primarily by socialism and moral conservatism.

Libertarianism is a joke.

And an especially cruel joke at that, considering that the majority of the country (the "middle," if such a term may be applied to people so profoundly disenfranchised by the American political system) are in fact libertarian. (That's with a small "l" folks; they prefer common sense to ideologues or ideology.)

Hidden agendas dominate politics, and neither "side" wishes the public to see the dreadful ideological venom which poisons their parties' rank and file. If you don't believe me, just get involved at the local level. You will quickly learn that the people who staff the tables, distribute leaflets, knock on doors -- in short DO ALL THE WORK -- are activists. Socialist, feminist, environmentalist, gun grabbing radicals on one side; religious fanatics who think God is guiding their every move and Christianity is defined by an obsessive hatred of homosexuality on the other.

Ideologues on both sides will generally be very nice to anyone naive enough to be tricked into working for a political campaign or organization, and therein lies the hook. Fanatics know full well that ordinary people who might want to make a difference are not fanatics. So, the goal becomes one of trying to convince them to become fanatics (a mild form of brainwashing often justified as "ideological training.") Those with real power in the two major political parties know what is going on and look the other way. Who else will staff the tables and do the dirty work?

Ordinary people who get bamboozled into working on these campaigns are sometimes fooled by the niceness and claims of friendship, and, not wanting to offend their "friends," they either go along with the bullshit, or remain silent.

Hidden agendas are everywhere. A recent example is the Terri Schiavo case, where a brain damaged woman is being "saved" by activists who have a primary goal of messing with homosexuals (in the name of "saving" them, of course, by submission to religious-based shame). I am not exaggerating; the organization paying the legal bills on the Schindler side is a notorious Christian Reconstruction outfit called the Alliance Defense Fund -- headed by James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, Don Wildmon and others who want homosexuals imprisoned. Their "victory" will be claimed as a "Christian" victory against the dark forces of homosexuality.

For an inside look into these thought processes, here is another fun website.

NOTE: At least two members of the Alliance Defense Fund's Board (Wildmon and Kennedy) are known members of the Coalition on Revival.

Lest anyone think I am out to bash the right here, let me give you an example from the left. At a San Francisco Lesbian Gay parade years ago, a large crowd was suddenly treated to a long harangue by a woman named Inez Garcia. No gay rights figure, she had simply killed a man who had raped her -- some weeks after the alleged rape. Her position was that any woman who is raped has an absolute right to kill in return, at any time. Not quite an eye for an eye, but good enough for the feminists of the time. So there we were, listening to Inez Garcia, and being counted as a crowd in "support" of her. While I wasn't completely unsympathetic to Ms. Garcia, I felt manipulated at the time.

Let me step back and narrow the focus. Might I be over-generalizing when I characterize the Big Split in American politics as Marxism versus Fundamentalism?

Might it be more evolving into something more specific? Something more along the lines of Identity Politics Left versus Identity Politics Right? Homos versus Christian Reconstruction, for example?

Let's take a look at the "sides."

Identity culture politics is one of the most tyrannical aspects of modern American society. It begins with labeling.

Under the philosophy of identity politics, there is no individuality, no right to be left alone to be yourself. Instead, you must be charted and analyzed. Your race must be identified, and you are not allowed to decide whether it matters or not. It matters. Your religion (or lack thereof) matters as never before.

One would think that human sexuality -- what it is that turns a person on sexually -- would be one of the most private matters there is. Even more than race. But no. Even such a personal matter is subject to an inquisition by religious maniacs and sexual activists.

I defy this system, and I always have. But most people won't and can't. Heterosexual or homosexual. According to many religious people, that's the choice. According to the sexual identity political activists, it isn't a choice. Under either approach, you must define yourself, so that you can be manipulated and then tyrannized some more. You must either be a homosexual or a heterosexual, and you must declare this. According to your answers, you will be either welcomed or shunned in various places. You cease to be an independent human being. You are now a something-sexual. It is fascinating that religious identity activists and sexual identity activists are increasingly in agreement about the need to ask, to identify, and then play the include/exclude game. In a recent example, religious school authorities asked a boy whether he was gay, and when he answered in the affirmative, demanded he submit to the shame cure, and then expelled him.

Religious identity politics is a more recent development, but one which is growing rapidly thanks to a ruthless juggernaut called Christian Reconstruction (another link here -- and here is a statement of some of the core beliefs of the Committee on Reconstruction).

Getting unbiased information is problematic, because Christian Reconstructionists believe in obtaining power through stealth, and conservatives are loathe to criticize those who help them. Especially fellow travelers. This brings up a central point: the similarity of Christian Reconstructionists to Communists. I have been around Communists and worked with them, and it amazes me how similar they are in their methods:

Working in the background

Stealth
Belief in a highly disciplined elite
work in coalitions through a variety of "fronts"
poised to take power
educate and indoctrinate young people for a future power takeover
frighten critics and potential converts by a combination of carrot (work in your campaign and give you money) and stick (threats, ostracism, ad hominem attacks) Techniques quite similar, I might note, to what Arthur Silber describes here.
While there appears to be somewhat of a genuine theological split between Christian Reconstructionists and other fundamentalist sects, the stealth nature of the Christian Reconstructionists tends to obscure its nature. (All the more reason to promote not only the First Amendment, but the reasoning behind it.)

But stealth and hidden agendas are what give these minorities the power to dominate majorities. Through stealth, minorities on the left and the right are able to dominate most of the American political process. Americans do not especially like identity politics, because it is profoundly un-American. But when the fanatic identity politicians are able to grab control of each major party, they can then pose as representing the entire country by pointing to each other as "alternatives" -- to the exclusion of the majority.

A lot of people have been talking about third parties. Arnold Schwarzenegger might as well have been a third party. In a normal election, the Republican minority activist consensus would have guaranteed a primary victory for McClintock (whose campaign, not coincidentally, was run by a Christian Reconstructionist) -- and, ultimately, another Democratic victory, not because the voters love the Democrats, but because the Democrats' version of rule by multiple identity politics groups is less threatening than the Republicans' "Party of God."

Fuller voter participation is the best way to stop this tyranny by activist minorities. It won't happen through the primaries. Voters need, simply, to have alternatives to those who hide behind cutthroat identity politics.

Identity politics is like gang membership, born out of a desire to belong, and a form of mob rule. It is based on emotion rather than thought. Voters reject it if given a chance, but it is very powerful -- and not always what it appears to be.

Just don't make the mistake of thinking it's limited to the left.

FROM: http://blogcritics.org/

RELIGION IN POLITICS

Written By
S.R. Shearer

http://www.endtimesnetwork.com/oldnews/vol1no1.html

PART III

As a result of the Democratic Party's disastrous rout in the 1994 election, Clinton began to successfully re-position the party back to the center and away from the ultra-liberal, special interest group politics of the 1980s which had made the Democrats unable to win the White House. In doing so, he was shamelessly poaching Republican issues. If he succeeded - and the results of the 1996 presidential election seemed to indicate that he was - Republicans could lose both the House and the Senate in 2000 and be shut out of the presidency for another eight years by Vice President Al Gore, the man Clinton was grooming to take over his new centrist Democratic Party. To Republicans who thought long-term, this meant the Supreme Court would be gone along with the entire federal judiciary; and it also meant a resurgence of the hated leftish-tinged federal bureaucracy and its related regulatory agencies. To anti-abortionists, anti-feminists, anti-homosexuals, free marketeers, etc., this meant the devastation of all the dreams of the right - especially, the Religious Right, the dreams of people like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, etc. By the time the Al Gore presidency finished - in the year 2009 - all of them would very probably be dead and buried, or at least close to it. It was precisely these people who refused to let Starr give up on his investigation of the president in the summer of 1997 - and thus was born the determination to "get Clinton" at all costs.

As we indicated in our previous newsletters, all this tended to reveal what the Religious Right and the Secular Right were really up to: preventing at whatever price Clinton's re-positioning of the Democratic Party in the center. Religious Right activists were not interested in the specifics of the charges against Clinton; they weren't even interested in necessarily finding out the truth of the charges against the president. They wouldn't have even been pleased (or relieved) to find out that the president was genuinely innocent of the charges. Their purpose was to remove him from office or to so cripple him (and the Democratic Party) politically that they could successfully install themselves in power in the year 2000 - and by their control of the presidency and both houses of Congress re-institute America as a "Christian nation."

The methodology hit upon by the "Get Clinton" crowd was for Starr to - in effect - hijack the Paula Jones case and to trap the president in a lie (perjury) - an impeachable offense. In order to accomplish this, they maneuvered Paula Jones into removing Gil Davis and Joseph Cammarata, her original lawyers, from the case and installing a new legal team under the auspices of the Rutherford Institute.

As we have suggested previously, the Rutherford Institute is an ultra-conservative legal foundation associated with various Religious Right causes, particularly prayer in the schools. It is based in Charlottesville, Virginia and like so many other conservative legal foundations is a recipient of funds from Richard Mellon Scaife. John Whitehead, the institute's founder and head, is a disciple of Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, head of the Chalcedon Foundation, based in Vallecito, California. Rushdooney reportedly helped Whitehead found the Rutherford Institute, and has been a director of the Institute and a participant in its speakers bureau.

RUSHDOONY AND THE INTELLECTUAL MINDSET BEHIND
THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE AND THE "GET CLINTON" CROWD

It's important that we pause here - perhaps even for a considerable length of time - to examine the mindset behind the Rutherford Institute and the core group of Religious Right activists in the "Get Clinton" crowd who are connected to it, because without an understanding of this mindset, it's impossible to grasp what they are really up to, or to measure the strength of their tenacity and the lengths to which they are prepared to go in order to achieve their ends. These people truly believe that God is on their side, and - as a result - they are prepared to do things that most other Christians would blanch at. They see themselves not as participants in some political game, but as warriors engaged in a life and death struggle against those who oppose them. It's a battle between the "sons of light" and the "sons of darkness" (Whitehead's words in his book, The Separation Illusion) - and because this is so, and because they believe that, in the end, their enemies are energized by the forces of hell, they are prepared to deal with their political enemies with that fact in mind. After all, if it eventually comes to killing (and most hard-core Reconstructionists believe that it will; for example, Rushdoony has said, "In winning a nation to the Gospel, the sword as well as the pen must be used") what they are killing are demons, not human beings, which is exactly what participants in the death squads of South and Central America believe as well [please see "Bringing in the Kingdom of God Death Squad Style"].

Rushdoony is the originator of and prime mover behind the many faceted movement which has come to be called "Christian Reconstruction." Christian Reconstruction is dedicated to replacing secular law with "Biblical law," and secular states with "theocratic republics." Reconstructionism in its broadest sense describes the rebuilding by Christians of every aspect of Western Civilization according to biblical strictures, beginning first with the United States. It is founded on the belief that God's laws, as described in the Bible, pertain to all people throughout history and comprise the only legitimate basis for culture. It places a demand on Christians everywhere to involve themselves in this process.

Christians who don't actively participate in the rebuilding of America as a "Christian state" are deemed apostates, and are to be dealt with accordingly - i.e., as the enemies of God.

RECONSTRUCTIONISTS SEE THEMSELVES AS "LITERALISTS"

Reconstructionists see themselves as "literalists" (though, they are anything but that), and, as a result, they see the Old Testament promises of earthly blessing and Godly dominion to the people of God as a real matter. The "flesh and blood," here and now" tinge to Reconstructionism all but blinds Reconstructionists to the heavenly (spiritual) counterparts of those same blessings which accrue to the church [Please see chapter three in the Antipas Papers, "The Distinction Between Israel and the Church" ]. In the Reconstructionist scheme of things, flesh matters a lot; spiritual things matter very little. It's what one can see and touch that counts, not those things which are spiritually discerned. They seem unable to fathom what Paul meant when he said:

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.

"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (I Cor. 2:12-14)

RECONSTRUCTIONISM IS AN "OLD TESTAMENT RELIGION"

By its very nature, Reconstructionism is a "religion" which exists in a "black and white" world of the "here and now." It is, as it were, a kind of Old Testament religion of flesh and blood with, flesh and blood armies battling other flesh and blood armies. There is no room in the Reconstructionist's scheme of things for Paul's injunction that "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Eph. 6:12)

The notion that the Bible teaches that when we are born again we became citizens of another kingdom - a heavenly kingdom - a kingdom that has NOTHING to do with this present world, is anathema to them; a teaching which declares that through baptism we, ipso facto, renounced our old connections (i.e., citizenship) to this world - which, of necessity includes the United States (much as a new immigrant to America, when he takes his oath of allegiance, renounces all former connections and allegiances to the country out from which he came) - is a teaching that repulses them.

Reconstructionists apparently have an extremely difficult time coming to terms with verses like John 18:36 ("My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight ... but ... my kingdom (is) not from hence"). They seem unable to understand exactly who really is in charge here. Verses like 1 John 5:19 ("... the whole world lies in {the power of} the evil one.") draw nothing more than a vacant stare from them. True, they will acknowledge that Satan has an "influence" in the world and among the nations thereof, but that is all that they will ever ascribe to him - influence, not control. But that, of course, is not what the Bible says; the Word of God clearly states that Satan CONTROLS the world. Satan controls the entire world.

The Bible teaches that the world is under Satan's dominion and he is its ruler (Luke 4:5-6). Satan is the great KOSMOKRATOR (Gk. - "world-ruler") of this earth, and he has directed all his strength and ingenuity into causing it to flourish. To what end? - to capture man's allegiance and draw him to himself. He has one object: to establish his own dominion in human hearts worldwide. But all this, of course, draws nothing more than a bewildered and rather perplexed gaze from Reconstructionists.

The fact is, there is no place in the Reconstructionist "world view" for verses like those cited above, or for verses like 1 John 2:15 ("Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world (i.e., our split level homes, our green lawns, our cars, our careers, our bank accounts, etc.). If any man love the world, the love of the Father is NOT in him."), or John 15:19 ("If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you."), or Heb. 11:16 ("... we desire a better country, that is, an heavenly (one): wherefore God is not ashamed to be called ... (our) God: for he hath prepared for ... (us) a city (i.e., a heavenly city) ..."), or I Peter 2:9 ("... (we) are (now) a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ... (we) should show forth the praises of him who hath called ... (us) OUT OF darkness [i.e., out of this world (cf. John 3:19; John 8:12; John 12:46; and Eph. 6:12)] INTO his marvellous light ...").

THE RACIST TINGE WHICH SURROUNDS CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTIONISM

Reconstructionists believe that God's blessings are dispensed in this world according to how closely people adhere to biblical law. If a nation governs its conduct according to biblical law it will be blessed; if a nation does not, it will be cursed. It is a simple equation with no "ifs," "ands," or "buts" attached to it - and, moreover, it is an equation which flows in both directions: specifically, the rich nations of this world are rich precisely because they adhere to biblical strictures, and the poor nations are poor precisely because they do not. To the degree that nations keep God's law, to that degree they are blessed, and to the degree that nations fail to keep God's law they are cursed - and this blessing can be measured in tangible, "real-life" forms: wealth and the lack of it (i.e., poverty).

This, of course, leads to some potentially very dangerous (and inevitably racist) conclusions - and it doesn't take someone with a Ph.D. to discern them. They seem quite effortlessly to present themselves. A few simple questions seem inevitably to lead to their "discovery." For example, which nations are the richest nations in the world? - obviously (with the possible exception of Japan), the nations of Western Europe and North America. Which nations are the poorest in the world? - plainly, the nations of Africa and the so-called "Developing World." The rich nations are mainly nations populated by the white race, the poor nations of Africa and the "Developing World" are largely nations populated by blacks and other "colored" peoples; ipso facto, the whites have been blessed; the blacks and others have been cursed.

And all this is not simply a matter of idle speculation and simple conjecture on our part. This is exactly the conclusion that many Reconstructionists themselves have reached. Take, for example, Gary North who, after Rushdoony, is the most prominent Reconstructionist in the nation: North has said, "... the nations of Africa are poor because they deserve to be poor; they have been cursed." And the same conclusions apply not only on a world scale, but internally on a national scale and on a societal level as well. Which people are rich in the United States? - the whites! Which people are poor? - the blacks and other minorities! Ipso facto, the whites have been blessed, the blacks and other minorities have been cursed. It's not an accident! It's not just a coincidence - a happenstance not worthy of any particular attention.

CHRISTIAN AYATOLLAHS AND THE "GET CLINTON CROWD"

RECONSTRUCTIONISM AND ANTI-SEMITISM

THE KHAZARS: A CASE IN POINT

CIRCUMCISION: A BULWARK AGAINST INTERMINGLING

SEE: http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/rightwing3.html

What Is the Political Program of the Creationist Movement?

by Lenny Flank

Excerpt

And this contempt for political democracy is reflected by the creationists as well. Kelly Segraves, the co-founder of the Creation Science Research Society, declares, "Humanism is a far-reaching social program that aims for the establishment throughout the world of democracy (lowest common denominator mob rule), peace and a high standard of living." (Segraves, Creation-Science Report, January 1980, cited in LaFollette, 1983, p. 182) Apparently, Segraves views democracy, peace and a high standard of living as the work of the Devil, and is determined to use creation "science" to help stamp these evils out.

In essence, the fundamentalists and their creationist allies want to do for the United States what the fundamentalist Ayatollahs have done for Iran--they want to run the country in accordance with their interpretation of "God's will". As they make clear, they are perfectly willing to dismantle most of American democracy in order to save us all from Satan. Rev. James Robison puts it like this, "Let me tell you something else about the character of God. If necessary, God would raise up a tyrant--a man who might not have the best ethics--to protect the freedom and the interests of the ethical and the godly." (cited in Vetter 1982, p. 6) And there seem to be no dearth of fundamentalists willing to volunteer to become that "tyrant".

The most militant of the Ayatollah-wanna-be's are the members of the "Reconstructionist" movement. The Reconstructionists were founded by Rouas J. Rushdoony, a militant fundamentalist who was instrumental in getting Henry Morris's book The Genesis Flood published in 1961. According to Rushdoony's view, the United States should be directly transformed into a theocracy in which the fundamentalists would rule directly according to the will of God. "There can be no separation of Church and State," Rushdoony declares. (cited in Marty and Appleby 1991, p. 51) "Christians," a Reconstructionist pamphlet declares, "are called upon by God to exercise dominion." (cited in Marty and Appleby 1991, p. 50) The Reconstructionists propose doing away with the US Constitution and laws, and instead ruling directly according to the laws of God as set out in the Bible---they advocate a return to judicial punishment for religious crimes such as blasphemy or violating the Sabbath, as well as a return to such Biblically-approved punishments as stoning.

According to Rushdoony, the Second Coming of Christ can only happen after the "Godly" have taken over the earth and constructed the Kingdom of Heaven here: "The dominion that Adam first received and then lost by his Fall will be restored to redeemed Man. God's People will then have a long reign over the entire earth, after which, when all enemies have been put under Christ's feet, the end shall come." (cited in Diamond, 1989, p. 139) "Christian Reconstructionism," another pamphlet says, "is a call to the Church to awaken to its Biblical responsibility to subdue the earth for the glory of God . . . Christian Reconstructionism therefore looks for and works for the rebuilding of the institutions of society according to a Biblical blueprint." (cited in Diamond 1989, p. 136) In the Reconstructionist view, evolution is one of the "enemies" which must be "put under Christ's feet" if the godly are to subdue the earth for the glory of God.

In effect, the Reconstructionists are the "Christian" equivilent of the Taliban.

While some members of both the fundamentalist and creationist movements view the Reconstructionists as somewhat kooky, many of them have had nice things to say about Rushdoony and his followers. The Discovery Institute, the chief cheerleader for "intelligent design theory", is particularly cozy with the Reconstructionists. The single biggest source of money for the Discovery Institute is Howard Ahmanson, a California savings-and-loan bigwig. Ahmanson's gift of $1.5 million was the original seed money to organize the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, the arm of the Discovery Institute which focuses on promoting "intelligent design theory" (other branches of Discovery Institute are focused on areas like urban transportation, Social Security "reform", and (anti) environmentalist organizing).

Ahmanson is a Christian Reconstructionist who was long associated with Rushdooney, and who sat with him on the board of directors of the Chalcedon Foundation -- a major Reconstructionist think-tank -- for over 20 years. Just as Rushdooney was a prime moving force behind Morris's first book, "The Genesis Flood", intelligent design "theorist" Phillip Johnson dedicated his book "Defeating Darwinism" to "Howard and Roberta" -- Ahmanson and his wife.

Ahmanson has given several million dollars over the past few years to anti-evolution groups (including Discovery Institute), as well as anti-gay groups, "Christian" political candidates, and funding efforts to split the Episcopalian Church over its willingness to ordain gay ministers and to other groups which oppose the minimum wage. He was also a major funder of the recent "recall" effort in California which led to the election of Terminator Arnie. Ahmanson is also a major funder of the effort for computerized voting, and he and several other prominent Reconstructionists have close ties with Diebold, the company that would manufacture the computerized voting machines if they were used. There has been some criticism of Diebold because it refuses to make the source code of its voting machine software available for scrutiny, and its software does not allow anyone to track voting after it is done (no way to confirm accuracy of the machine). This ease of possible "vote-fixing" may or may not be connected to the belief of Diebold's Reconstructionist backers that only "Christians" should be allowed to vote.

Some of Ahmanson's donations are channeled through the Fieldstead Foundation, which is a subspecies of the Ahmanson foundation "Fieldstead" is Ahmanson's middle name). The Fieldstead Foundation funds many of the travelling and speaking expenses of the DI's shining stars.

The Reconstructionists are not the only kooks who find support among fundies. Pat Robertson has also had some nice things to say about some of the right-wing "militias", and invited a guest from the Militia of Montana to serve as an "expert" for a piece on the BATF and FBI that ran after the Oklahoma bombing. "A lot of it goes right back to what happened with the Branch Davidians, Randy Weaver and these other people," Robertson said (in a statement that could have come from any of a dozen different militia nuts). "It's reminiscient of the Nazis, and something's got to be done". (700 Club, July 11, 1995, cited in Boston, 1996, p. 141) In his book "The New World Order", Robertson manages to parrot virtually every one of the canards tossed around by the paranoid Right. According to Robertson, a secret cabal of "international (read: "Jewish") bankers and financiers", along with the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission and various other groups, is trying to destroy Christianity, take over the world and impose a satanic "one world government". Among other things, says Robertson, these conspirators killed Lincoln, started the First World War, have taken over the world monetary system, and are using the education system to destroy morality so the US can be taken over by UN troops.

In the book, Robertson cites as "authorities" Nesta Webster, an early 20th century anti-Semite who wrote Secret Societies and Subversive Movements. Robertson also lists as a resource Secrets of the Federal Reserve, by Eustace Mullins. Mullins, an anti-Semite and racist who argued that the Jews were using the Federal Reserve to control the country, was also the author of Proof of Negro Inferiority and The Hitler We Loved and Why. Robertson's paranoid ravings are extremely popular among the militia and neo-Nazi movements, and the book is available from many far-Right sources. Another evangelist with ties to neo-Nazi and right-wing militia movements is Jack van Impe. On several occasions, van Impe has presented "news stories" about foreign troops in the US which are training to take over the country at the behest of the UN--a standard canard of the loony Right. He has further stated that the armed militias are one way to counter the evils of the "one world government". Van Impe's sources for his "news stories" include The Spotlight, the publication of the anti-Semitic and racist Liberty Lobby and the Patriot Report. Finally, there is Chuck Missler, founder of Koinonia House in Idaho and a minister with the Cavalry Chapels in california. Missler publishes the newsletter "Personal Update", which uses at its sources The Spotlight and the American Patriot Fax Network, run by various militias, "Christian Identity" racist groups, and neo-Nazis. Among other things, Missler has suggested that the Federal government blew up the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in an attempt to blame it on the militia movement and discredit it.

Creationists also parrot a lot of standard militia and "Christian Patriot" baloney. In a "Back to Genesis" article that discusses the Pope's recent announcement concerning evolution, Morris presents a picture that could could have come from any of a number of far-right loons and militia types. After informing readers that His Holiness the Pope has announced that it's not ungodly to believe the theory of evolution, Morris makes this VERY curious statement: "One cannot help suspecting that the recent spate of events and media articles 'puffing' evolution is being orchestrated somewhere to combat the modern resurgance of creationism around the world." (ICR, Back to Genesis, "Evolution and the Pope", December 1996, p. 1)

Veteran right-wing watchers will immediately recognize this schtick----the old "worldwide conspiracy to destroy god, mother and country". "They" are "orchestrating" everywhere, according to Morris---and evolution is their weapon. The Pope's pronouncement comes as no surprise to Morris, since after all he already KNEW that the Whore of Babylon was doing the work of Satan on earth. After all, Morris points out, Teilhard de Chardin, a CATHOLIC PRIEST, was a supporter of evolutionary theory. "Evolution was, to all intents and purposes," says Morris, "Teilhard's 'god', and his goal was globalism, a unified world government, culture and religion, with all religions merged into one." (Back to Genesis, December 1996)

Again, right-wing watchers will immediately recognize Morris's description of "the enemy"---it is "the new world order", that international conglomeration of dark forces who are conspiring to force the world into socialism, atheism, free sex, anarchy and humanism. As Morris puts it, "All cults and movements associated with the "new world order" of the so-called New Age Movement have two things in common--evolutionism as their base and globalism as their goal." (Back to Genesis, December 1996)

And who is beind this "globalist conspiracy"? Well, of course the Pope must be a member in good standing: "Since his election, he has increasingly been promoting a syncrestic agenda." (Back to Genesis, December 1996). And, says Morris, just look at who the Pope has met with during his tenure:

"There are more and more signs that such globalism is also the aim of Pope John Paul II and other modern liberal Catholics. If so, this publicized commitment to evolutionism would contribute substantially to such a goal. All world religions--including most of mainline Protestantism, as well as Hinduism, Buddhism and the rest--except for Biblical Christianity, Orthodox Judaism and Fundamentalist Islam, have embraced some form of evolutionism (either theistic, deistic or pantheistic) and rejected or allegorized the true record of origins in Genesis. The Pope has participated in important meetings with leaders of Communism, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Lamaism and others, as well as the World Council of Churches, the Trilateral Commission, the B'nai B'rith of liberal Judaism, and a wide assortment of still others."

So there you have it, folks. The Pope, in concert with the Communists and the Trilateral Commission (an "enemies list" that will be very familiar to right-wing militia-watchers) is part of a vast international conspiracy to destroy Christianity and impose a secular humanist one-world-government upon us all.

Indeed, the Reconstructionists, militia "Christian Patriots" and the creation "scientists" differ from each other only in degree, not in kind. All of these factions agree that the US should be run according to "Christian" values and beliefs; all of these factions agree that THEY are the final arbiters of what "God's will" really is. And all of these factions view creationism as a weapon with which to bring about this "Christian order".

And what would this fundamentalist utopia look like? Some of the statements and actions of the fundamentalists are illustrative. The Christian Right has spent enormous time and effort in pushing for legislation to protect the "traditional family", as they define it according to Biblical terms. In Indiana and Washington, fundamentalists have sued in an attempt to have all state child-abuse and wife-beating laws repealed, on the grounds that such laws violated their religious freedom by interfering with the Biblical right of a father to "have dominion" over his wife and children and by abridging the father's "divine right to discipline" (cited in Vetter, 1982 pp. 6-7)

Another area which attracts a lot of fundamentalist attention is homosexuality; fundamentalists have made massive efforts to oppose and roll back civil rights for gays and lesbians, in an effort to marginalize them and eventually ghettoize them. And some fundamentalists make no secret of the fact that they would go much further in their treatment of homosexuals if given the chance--Dean Wycoff of the California Moral Majority frankly admits, "I agree with capital punishment and I believe that homosexuality . . . could be coupled with murder and other sins. It would be the government that sits upon this land who will be executing the homosexuals." (cited in Young, 1982, p. 77)

This, then, is the picture that emerges of the ultimate aims of the fundamentalists and their creationist allies: a country in which a "Christian order" will "take over every area of life"; in which democracy is contemptuously referred to as "mob rule" and a "tyranny", and where we "never should have" freedom of speech; in which "pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil" and "the state will not permit anybody the right to sin"; a nation in which people, "like slaves and soldiers", ask no questions; where the separation of church and state is "communistic" and Christians rule by "Divine mandate"; where laws are ordained by God and the "sinful" are executed by the state. In short, the fundamentalists want a theocratic police state. After all, a police state is great--if you happen to be the police.

Crusade: Racial and religious exclusivism in George Bush's America

by Michael Gillespie

". . . this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile."

President George W. Bush, September 16, 2001

On a recent Friday, American flags and red, white, and blue streamers waved proudly in the breeze in Vidor, Texas, as hundreds of East Texans turned out for a 'Support our Troops' rally at the Vidor High School football stadium.

Whether the Vidor rally was one of many across the USA reportedly arranged by managers of radio stations owned by San Antonio-based media giant Clear Channel Communications, Inc., which has strong ties to the Bush administration and the Republican Party, is unclear. Clear Channel Vice Chair Thomas Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1998 in a lucrative deal that made then-Texas governor and Rangers part owner George W. Bush a multi-millionaire. Clear Channel, which operates some 1,225 radio and 40 television stations in the United States and advertises itself as 'a leading promoter, producer and marketer of live entertainment events,' owns at least two radio stations in nearby Beaumont, Texas.

According to the Enterprise, Beaumont's daily newspaper, Vidor rally organizers said they didn't intend to make a statement about the war, but 'many of those attending the afternoon rally denounced anti-war demonstrators for being unpatriotic.'

Clear Channel has denied ordering its station managers to organize the rallies, but one thing is certain: whoever chose Vidor as a rally site had a finger on the pulse of George Bush's crusade and the xenophobic ignorance and racial and religious exclusivism that drive it.

A Ku Klux Klan stronghold for nearly a century, Vidor is still home to members of active Klan organizations today. One of them, the White Camelia Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, espouses a Christian Identity racial ideology and a theology based on interpretations of selected Old and New Testament passages used to support claims that the Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Scandinavian peoples are 'God's chosen people, Israel.' The White Camelia Knights periodic fundraising and recruiting drives in Vidor typically include the sale of peanut brittle at literature tables set up outside the doors of the local Wal-Mart, evidence that such Klan groups and the attitudes they represent enjoy significant popular support in George Bush's Texas.

Located near the Louisiana border, Vidor has long been proud of its well-earned national reputation for overt hostility toward African Americans and other people of color. Well into the 1960s, crude hand-lettered signs posted on local highways in Vidor informed travelers: NIGGER DON'T LET THE SUN SET ON YOU HERE. The signs were a reminder that hooded Klansmen still roamed the night when they felt the need to do so. Vidor's racist history dates back to the turn of the previous century when the town was founded and named after C.S. Vidor, a local lumber magnate and, in a somewhat ironic twist, father of Hollywood film director King Vidor, whose anti-war classic, The Big Parade (1925), was MGM's most successful film prior to Gone With the Wind.

Overt discrimination against people of color has long been and remains an accepted facet of everyday life in Vidor. In 1994, then-U.S. Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Henry Cisneros called on federal marshals, FBI agents, and police to force compliance with public housing laws in Vidor. HUD housing in Vidor had never been opened to African-Americans because of Klan intimidation, the inaction of the local public housing authority, and the community's long history of violence against Blacks. With the assistance of federal law enforcement authorities, Cisneros personally led the effort to move some Black families into Vidor's federally-funded public housing, but the integration effort, only marginally successful, came at a high cost. One African-American male, harassed and driven out of his HUD apartment in Vidor, was later found murdered in Beaumont. Speculation surrounding the murder said the Klan or Klan sympathizers were involved. In April 1994, White supremacist Edith Marie Johnson was sentenced to 40 hours of community service after pleading guilty to threatening to shoot any Black who moved into Vidor's all-white public housing facility.

More recently, Jasper, Texas, a county seat an hour or so north of Vidor, came to the world's attention after three White supremacists chained a Black man, James Byrd Jr., to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged him to dismemberment and death. The macabre 1998 murder and the resulting trial, which galvanized the nation's attention for a time and resulted in two sentences of death and one of life imprisonment, led directly to political efforts to enact a hate crimes law in Texas. When the Texas House of Representatives passed the bill, 83-61, it seemed that something good might come of the racist murder. Then-governor George Bush promised to consider the bill if the state Senate passed it, but Bush and his Republican colleagues managed to keep the bill tied up in committee in the Senate. Bush, who was preparing to run for president, could not afford to be viewed as friendly to hate crimes legislation by his political base in Texas and across the South. When Byrd?s daughter, Renee Mullins, traveled to Austin to plead for passage of the bill, Bush initially refused to meet with her. U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson was eventually able to arrange a meeting, and Bush is reported to have reacted to Mullins' personal plea awkwardly, with icy disdain. Her meeting with Bush left Mullins in tears. Texas Republicans eventually voted to kill the James Byrd Jr. Memorial Hate Crimes Bill, but during the presidential campaign Bush spoke publicly about Texas's hate crimes law taking credit for a strong and effective law that, in fact, does not exist because he himself prevented its passage.

The Ku Klux Klan is not the only group promoting xenophobia, racism, and religious bigotry in Texas and beyond. The bedrock of the Republican Party in Texas and the core of former Governor and now President Bush's support is the Christian Right. Dallas, home to Senator Hutchinson, is the sentimental home of Christian Zionism, the primary theological and ideological force behind Christian fundamentalism in the USA. The socially and politically influential Christian doomsday cult's founder was an alcoholic Confederate Civil War veteran named Cyrus Schofield. Schofield, who wrote his own or someone else's chiliastic or millennialist views into the margins of what has come to be known as the Schofield Reference Bible, became pastor of Dallas' First Congregational Church in 1882. The increasing popularity of the Schofield Reference Bible, first published in 1908 by the Oxford University Press despite Schofield's having no legitimate academic or theological training, is perhaps the single most influential and disturbing development in Christian theology in the modern era. It is disturbing because many of today's ageing Christian Zionist leaders are convinced that a world-ending nuclear conflagration called Armageddon is destined to take place in the Holy Land in their lifetimes. According to Christian Zionism's exclusivist doctrines, only 144,000 Jews who convert to Christianity and a larger number of non-Jewish believing Christians will be ruptured and spared the fate of eternal damnation and destruction in a lake of fire at the end of the world. Now that Christian Zionist leaders wield substantial influence in the Republican Party and over George Bush's Middle East foreign policy, their militant religious exclusivism is no longer merely a bizarre theological curiosity. It is a real and gathering threat to the continued progress of human civilization.

Some who track the activities of hate groups have attributed the increasing popularity of Christian Zionism to the cult's celebrity leaders' ability to tap into overt and latent racial animus once commonly directed at African-Americans and Jews and redirect it toward Arabs and Muslims. Anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, long fueled by flagrant anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in television and motion picture industry programming, has been called the only remaining politically correct expression of racism in America. Since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, and other celebrity Christian fundamentalist leaders have publicly characterized Islam as a religion of hate and smeared the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) as a terrorist. Falwell appears frequently on nationally broadcast television programs to voice opinions supportive of Israel. Looking for inspiration in Israel's victories over its Arab neighbors, Falwell became a supporter of Israel soon after the U.S. military's ignominious defeat in Vietnam. In the decades since the Vietnam War, conservative ideologues enthralled by Christian Zionism's exclusivist and violent theology have increasingly found fulfillment and taken vicarious pleasure in Israel's wars against Palestinian civilians and its other Arab neighbors. The Bush crusade, the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq provide avenues for more immediate and direct expression of Christian Zionism's animosity toward any and all non-Christian foreigners (except Israelis) who stand between the militant doomsday cultists and their dreams of and desire for rapture, heavenly release.

The racial and religious exclusivism of the White Camelia Knights, which relegates all other racial groups and all non-Christians to an inferior status, and the religious exclusivism of Christian Zionism, which consigns all non-Christians to a nuclear holocaust at the end of the world, find a parallel in the ideology/theology of Jewish fundamentalist groups known as Hasidim. Hasidim base their racial and religious exclusivism and the modern political agenda that flows from it on the teachings of the 16th-century Lurianic Cabala. The late Israeli professor, author, and human and civil rights advocate Israel Shahak and his co-author Central Connecticut State University professor Norton Mezvinsky, writing in their 1999 book Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, exposed the basis of Jewish fundamentalism's racism and bigotry: 'a Lurianic doctrine that non-Jews have Satanic souls: 'Souls of non-Jews come entirely from the female part of the Satanic sphere. For this reason, the souls of non-Jews are called evil, not good, and are created without [divine] knowledge.'? In the United States, the most noteworthy Hasidic group is composed of followers of the Lubovitcher Rebbe, among them White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer. With the rise of the religious Right, the Republican Party has become a haven for well-heeled, media savvy professional proponents of racial and religious exclusivism. It is difficult to imagine that Abraham Lincoln would recognize today's GOP, much less feel at home in it.

Hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims in the United States have increased dramatically since September 11, 2001. In addition to several murders and numerous assaults and beatings, many attacks on mosques and Muslim and Arab owned-businesses have been reported and investigated by local, state, and federal authorities. But thus far, the worst outrages may have been prevented. In August 2002, Florida podiatrist Robert Goldstein was arrested after police found some 40 weapons including semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles and a .50 caliber sniper rifle, 15 homemade explosive devices, and material to manufacture 30 to 40 more bombs in his home, along with a list of 50 Islamic sites in Florida and plans to blow up an Islamic education center. In December 2001 in California, Jewish Defense League (JDL) leader Irv Rubin and JDL member Earl Krugel were arrested after an FBI undercover informant handed over to the pair an explosive powder they allegedly planned to use to bomb a Southern California mosque and the office of Rep. Darrell E. Issa, R-Vista, who is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants. Rubin, who claimed to have been arrested 40 times, died in November 2002 after he apparently attempted suicide in jail. Continuing U.S. military actions in the Middle East and the mainstream media propaganda blitzkrieg that supports the Bush crusade are certain to further inflame anti-Arab racism and anti-Muslim bigotry in the USA.

Round the clock television coverage of the so-called war on terrorism and the war in Iraq is an alarming departure from anything ever seen before in the USA. In a continuous display of jingoistic nationalism presented as patriotism, cable and satellite TV news organizations broadcast sanitized versions of U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan for its entertainment and propaganda value. Coverage by Fox News and MSNBC is particularly noxious. On Wednesday, March 28, as U.S. troops pushed toward Baghdad, MSNBC presenter Lester Holt interviewed retired U.S. Army general Montgomery Meigs, one of dozens of retired U.S. military officers serving as analysts in media coverage of the Bush administration?s crusade. Meigs described a combat firefight as 'a fascinating and exhilarating event.' In a positively Orwellian juxtaposition, Holt then segued to an excerpt from a video taped interview with Colin Powell in which the U.S. Secretary of State and former General opined that, 'One day the Iraqi people will understand that we came in peace.' Holt closed the segment by observing that, 'Tomorrow will be a very fascinating day.' The message is unmistakable: Americans are expected not only to heartily approve of this war, they are instructed to enjoy it, and anything less would be unpatriotic.

Every pack of racist thugs who ever obstinately and impatiently insisted upon an unfair fight in which they enjoyed enormous advantage, has, whether openly or secretly, reveled in the violence of the slaughter. The Bush cabal, hell-bent on employing overwhelmingly superior military force in yet another predominantly Muslim country already devastated by war and economic sanctions, has that much, at least, in common with the three Texas white supremacists who tied a chain around the ankles of James Byrd, Jr. and dragged him behind their pick-up truck until his head separated from his body. Bush, his astonishingly arrogant Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Defense Policy Board chair and recently exposed war-profiteer Richard Perle made little effort to hide their determination and obvious impatience in the run-up to war. They could hardly wait to unleash the U.S. military's devastating airpower, smart-munitions technologies, and other high-tech military firepower to wreak vengeance, havoc, death, and destruction upon a much weaker if not utterly defenseless foe. The U.S. propaganda machine works tirelessly to obscure both the mutilating putrefying horror of mechanized, industrialized, high-tech warfare and the religious and racial exclusivism that undergird Bush's crusade. Front line troops may talk of 'taking out a couple of rag-heads' and aircraft support crews may decorate smart bombs and missiles with graffiti about 'sand niggers,' but the Pentagon's media machine and its operatives in broadcast media can be counted on never to let any hint of racism and bigotry or any disturbing images of gory carnage slip through to viewers back home. The three Texas racists who murdered James Byrd Jr. pretended congeniality and concealed their tell-tale White supremacist tattoos when they offered Byrd a ride home and, after they dragged him to pieces on a rural road, hosed off their truck and their chain.

A huge majority of Christian leaders, including Pope John Paul II, have resolutely voiced their opposition to what they view as an unjust, un-Christian, and potentially catastrophic U.S. war against Iraq, and those same leaders have led or actively supported peacemaking efforts in the Holy Land and the Middle East. They have also worked to improve and strengthen relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews. George Bush, who presents himself as a devoutly religious man, has stubbornly refused to meet with American Christian leaders who are opposed to the war in Iraq, even the leaders of the United Methodist Church, of which both he and Vice President Dick Cheney are members. But why should that have surprised anyone? His background strongly suggests that Bush, a child of wealth and privilege, is insensitive to the pain of the poor and people of color and remarkably careless regarding other moral and ethical matters.

His critics say Bush has never had a job that he got on the strength of his own abilities, that he avoided military service in Vietnam, scored two points above "too dumb to fly" on his flight school test, and later went AWOL from his Texas Air Guard unit for an entire year. It is widely reported that Bush, a 'C' student, drank and drugged his way through his studies at Yale and Harvard, that he profited handsomely from shady deals in the oil business depending on his father's influence and using his father's cronies' money. While governor of Texas, Bush parlayed his borrowed-money stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team into a multi-million dollar bonanza. In addition to snuffing the state's chance at meaningful hate crimes legislation, Bush introduced largely ineffective voluntary environmental protection standards, kept the state dead last in teacher salary rankings, and authorized the execution of 152 Texas Prison System death row inmates, more than any other U.S. governor ever. Minority groups are grossly over-represented in prisons and death rows across the nation, and a U.S. Justice Department review in 2000 found that prosecutors were twice as likely to seek capital punishment for Black and Hispanic defendants. Though he received fewer votes than Democratic Party candidate Al Gore, Bush was effectively appointed to the highest office in the land by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court after his brother Jeb's minions rigged the election in Florida for him by illegally removing African American voters from polling lists. Soon after becoming president, Bush, a staunch death penalty advocate, became the first president in 40 years to preside over federal executions. Early this year Bush addressed the nation to declare that his administration would urge the Supreme Court to strike down affirmative action admission policies at the University of Michigan in favor of a Texas plan that in practice admits a lower percentage of minority students. Now, his critics say, this arrogant and corrupt son of wealth, power, and privilege who would have us believe he is compassionate and deeply religious has taken the country into a crusade and a war that most religious leaders believe is unjust.

Apparently incapable of doing otherwise, the incorrigible racist bigot, blinded by ignorance, fear, hate, and pseudo-religious fervor and driven by his insatiable appetite for power, invariably overreaches. Saddam Hussein is by all accounts an evil tyrant and his regime a crew of despicable criminals, but Bush's crusade, his so-called war on terrorism and his war of conquest in Iraq, find their strongest support among those pathologically obsessed by racial and religious exclusivity and hate: Israeli and American supporters of Israel's Likud Party, which champions illegal occupation, brutal oppression, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine; Christian Zionist leaders and their followers who long for rapture and a heavenly box-seat view of the violent destruction of human civilization here below; and Ku Klux Klansmen like those peddling peanut brittle and hate at the Wal-Mart in Vidor, Texas.

The worst of it is this: The vast majority of the thousands upon thousands on both sides who will die in the Bush crusade wars are good and decent human beings. They are ordinary men, women, and children who love their families, who enjoy and respect their friends and neighbors, who appreciate or at least tolerate other races, religions, and cultures. They have no interest in anybody's crusade, no desire to be caught up in anyone's war.

The new American century begins now, with a descent into military, political, moral, spiritual, and economic disaster courtesy of the 43^rd president of the United States of America, George W. Bush.

Freelance Investigative Journalist and Commentator Michael Gillespie writes about Politics and Media for Media Monitors Network (MMN). His work also appears frequently in the popular Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Source:

by courtesy & 2003 Michael Gillespie

FROM: http://www.mediamonitors.net/gillespie12.html

CABAL - PART I

CABAL - PART III