America's Taliban

Ed Encho has a good post on Taylor Marsh. Referring to a new book by Chris Hedges titled American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, he writes:

On Monday, the 35th anniversary of Roe V. Wade, George W. Bush played to the rubber fetus crowd with his annual phone call to anti-reproductive rights activists. Pandering to the so-called pro lifers who are all that remain of the red plague that has swept America is vintage Rove, especially on the day prior to the State of the Union Address. The hateful lemmings awaiting Rapture can always be counted on to maintain steadfast and unwavering in support of their exalted king’s holy crusade to call forth a rain of fire from the skies over Tehran. There are increasingly ominous signs that an attack on Iran is imminent with the incessant MSM propaganda of the past week and the yahoos are anxious to get it on. The cult of the glorious reappearing has now consummated it’s unholy union with the ivory tower dwelling ideologues at the American Enterprise Institute and the doomsday clock is moving closer to midnight.

That Bush finds it necessary at this juncture to continue to cater to the whims of the extremist Christian Right speaks volumes as to the disproportionate amount of influence that the lunatic fringe holds over American policy............ Radical clerics like Falwell and Dobson and their ilk are deferred to and treated as king makers for any potential Republican candidate and Senator McCain has puckered up to kiss Dobson and Falwell’s rings with alarming frequency. Why these reactionary zealots are given any credibility at all is a travesty and we will all eventually be the ones who reap the whirlwind. The extremist elements of the Christian Right need to be stigmatized and isolated as the cancer on free society that they truly are and not embraced by charlatan politicians pandering for votes. It only serves to further empower the menace to democracy that is represented by the ravenous wolves lurking amongst the sheep.

His (Hedges) unrelentingly frank examination of the Christian Right is as comprehensive and damning an indictment of the perversion of religion for the acquisition of political power that I have yet to come across:

According to Hedges:

In this version of the Christian Gospel, the exploitation and abuse of other human beings is a good. Homosexuality is an evil. And this global, heartless system of economic rationalization has morphed in the rhetoric of the Christian Right into a test of faith. The ideology it espouses is a radical evil, an ideology of death, it calls for wanton destruction, destruction of human beings, of the environment, of communities and neighborhoods, of labor unions, of a free press, of Iraqis, Palestinians or others in the Middle East who would deny us oil fields and hegemony, of federal regulatory agencies, social welfare programs, public education – in short, the destruction of all people and programs that stand in the way of a Christian America and its God-given right to dominate the rest of the planet.

Hedges shines a light on the parasitical false prophets who prey on the weak, the failed and the confused in order to lure them into the flock and turn them into foot soldiers in a political army........

Much to his credit, Hedges does not allow himself to be constrained by the impoliteness of political correctness – a concept that the right has used so effectively in manufacturing animosity. Liberals have a tendency to be overly sensitive when it comes to dealing with zealots and reactionary freaks and the Religious Right benefits immensely from the refusal to engage it on a level playing field. This unwillingness to call this movement out for what they are – fascists with an innate loathing for democracy only allows it to grow stronger and more organized. Hedges states:

Debate with the radical Christian Right is useless. We cannot reach this movement. It does not want a dialogue. It is a movement based on emotion and cares nothing for rational thought and discussion..... These dominionists hate the liberal, enlightened world formed by the Constitution, a world they blame for the debacle of their lives. They have one goal – it’s destruction.

Posted on The Human Stain