Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
Posts by Bruce Wilson
What Sarah Palin's "Jewish people will be flocking to Israel" prediction really means
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on November 21, 2009 at 7:24 AM.
There's some acceptance that statements such as Sarah Palin's prediction that Jews will soon be "flocking to Israel" may indicate Palin holds apocalyptic beliefs. What's not understood is that she's closely associated with a religious tendency whose leaders promote anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, including one most commonly used by the Third Reich, in the 1930's and 1940's, to whip up anti-Semitic hatreds: the claim that a worldwide cabal of Jewish bankers manipulates the world economy and preys on working classes.
Stumping for her new autobiography, Sarah Palin has made a round of interviews with high profile media figures such as Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters. In the Walters interview Palin justified her support for expansion of Jewish settler enclaves on Israel's West Bank with a strange prediction. Walters asked, "Now let's talk about some issues - the Middle East. The Obama Administration does not want Israel to build any more settlements on what they consider Palestinian territory. What is your view on this ?" Palin responded, "I disagree with the Obama Administration on that. I believe that, um, the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon because the population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead."
Why might Palin's prediction come to pass ?
In the 1920's and 1930's, rising anti-Semitism was propelled, in part, by conspiracy theories alleging that Jewish bankers such as the Rothschild banking family controlled both the German and world economies through the manipulation of global money markets. Leaders in Sarah Palin's religious tendency have for years been promoting extremely similar conspiracy theories. Some of these allege that the Rothschild banking family heads an international conspiracy that dominates much of the world economy and controls the U.S.economy through the Federal Reserve.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Palin's Prayer Leader Hinted Terrorist Attack Could Make Her President
Posted by Bruce Wilson on November 16, 2009 at 7:28 PM.
In the final weeks of the 2008 presidential election, one of the religious leaders closest to Sarah Palin hinted that the Alaska governor might soon get an unexpected career boost... from a terrorist attack.
Independent Charismatic Christianity vexed the McCain campaign throughout the 2008 campaign, first in the debacle that followed John McCain's decision to accept a long-sought political endorsement from Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, when an anti-Semitic 2005 sermon by Hagee surfaced, then through infighting between Sarah Palin and McCain campaign staff.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Pentagon Paying Taliban Who Are Killing US Troops
Posted by Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action on November 12, 2009 at 8:44 AM.
"It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting." - Aram Roston, The Nation
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
"I Am Not Trying to Kill Health Reform," Says House Blue Dog Bart Stupak -- Is It True?
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on October 29, 2009 at 1:00 PM.
Blue Dog Democrats in Congress played a "magnificent" role in blocking health care reform during the Clinton administration. And, under the "courageous" and "smart" leadership of House Pro-Life Caucus leader, Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, with the support and prayers of Republicans categorically opposed to the Democratic Party's health care reform effort, the Blue Dogs may be able to do it again.
That's what Stupak's caucus co-chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) told the audience at a "townhall" panel event on Friday September 18th at the Family Research Council Action's Washington DC 2009 Values Voter Summit [see attached video and transcript]. Another Republican at the event, Tom Price (R-GA), suggested that lockstep GOP opposition to health care reform affords the Blue Dogs "an opportunity to show some backbone" and "stand up to their leadership to say 'no more will we allow this travesty to go on.'"
In an October 29 op-ed for The Hill, Stupak protests, “[r]ecent news articles have reported that I am trying to “kill” healthcare reform, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.” In his Hill op-ed, Bart Stupak writes, “[o]ur healthcare system is broken and I believe reform is necessary.” As usual, the devil is in the details.
Representative Stupak has repeatedly said that his anti-abortion caucus has enough Democratic Party votes to ally with Republicans to block the health care bill from going to the house floor and Stupak is demanding, in exchange for not blocking the bill, that he be allowed to introduce an amendment to H.R. 3200 that would definitively prevent the new health care program from funding abortions.
According to Stupak his amendment probably would pass because polls show that a clear majority of Americans are opposed to the government funding of abortions. But if the amendment passes, the Democratic Party pro-choice voting block in the House may withdraw its support of H.R. 3200, leaving House leadership without enough votes to pass the bill.
However, Bart Stupak’s agenda seems to go beyond simply preventing federally funded abortions and could be viewed as a back-door effort that could make abortion services unavailable to most Americans. A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 87% of US counties lacked abortion providers but the health care amendment Stupak has co-sponsored together with GOP Representative Joe Pitts (R-PA) would bar not only publicly but also privately funded abortion coverage in a national health care exchange system; health care providers participating in the new health care system wouldn’t be allowed to offer abortion services at all.
One of Stupak’s statements even seems suggest he is opposed to a health care system which acknowledges any basic reproductive rights whatsoever. On Wednesday September 23rd, in an interview for the National Catholic Register, which bills itself as the nation's biggest Catholic pro-life publication, Bart Stupak warned that under public health care options, "At least one dollar of your money will go to supplement reproductive rights or abortion services."
The position and health care amendment seem almost tailored to offend reproductive rights advocates in the House and call into question Congressman Stupak’s assurance that he is acting in good will. Which in turn raises the issue of Bart Stupak’s involvement in The Family.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
An Open Letter To Elie Wiesel: Please Don't Legitimize John Hagee
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on October 24, 2009 at 10:28 AM.
Dear Mr. Wiesel,
Your years of tireless campaigning for human rights and against anti-Semitism have earned our deepest respect. For this reason we have written the following letter in hope that you will reconsider your support of events sponsored by John Hagee's Christians United for Israel.
We realize that the outward show of support for Jews and Israel, on display at Hagee's CUFI events, can be very enticing but there is another aspect of Christian Zionism which we believe runs strongly counter to Jewish and Israeli interests.
John Hagee teaches "theological racism," the idea that the destiny of peoples is based on their biblical genealogy. Hagee claims that Jewish souls are different from those of gentiles and that, according to divine plan, Jews have no right to live anywhere on Earth but in Israel. Hagee's fellow Christian Zionists predict that a coming, divinely ordained paroxysm of anti-Semitic violence, a "second Holocaust," will be necessary to force all Jews to make aliyah. From the pulpit, Hagee and his fellow Christian Zionists preach their theological racism that risks provoking such a catastrophe.
When you attend CUFI events, you will receive a great deal of outward affection and participate in singing and celebration that looks and sounds Jewish. However, this is a manifestation of a volatile millennial cycle, an exuberant embrace of "Hebrew roots" founded on the expectation that this generation will bring about the fulfillment of "God's plan for Israel." There is some argument among Christian Zionists about the exact timing and details of this plan, but on one point they are absolutely consistent; the ingathering of Jews to Israel, and the elimination of Rabbinic Judaism as part of Israel's "restoration," are required for the 1000 year reign of Christ.
Our combined years of research have produced a substantial body of documentation on the anti-Semitic face of Christian Zionism. Last May, one small piece of that documentation was widely publicized through a video by Bruce Wilson that included a quote, from a sermon John Hagee gave in 2005, in which pastor Hagee stated "...then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter." Amidst the ensuing publicity, presidential candidate John McCain rejected Hagee's political endorsement.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Bill Clinton Affirms To NBC That "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" Is Attacking Obama
Posted by Bruce Wilson on September 27, 2009 at 10:41 AM.
In an interview on NBC today, reports Politico.com, "Meet The Press" interviewer David Gregory asked Former US President Bill Clinton, "Your wife famously talked about the vast right wing conspiracy targeting you. As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?"
Clinton answered in the affirmative; "Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed demographically. But it's as virulent as it was. I mean, they're saying things about him. You know, it's like when they accused me of murder, and all that stuff they did... Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail."
Bill Clinton's mention of the political import of demographic changes likely referred to an analysis, popular in liberal think-tank circles, which projects that because much the GOP's base has been rooted among white European-Americans, Democratic Party fortunes will rise in coming decades as non-European minority groups, which historically have tended to vote for Democratic Party candidates, come to constitute an ever-larger share of the voting electorate.
But that analysis ignores aggressive efforts to move the American conservative movement past its latter 20th Century ties to race-based politics. While the 2008 election amounted to a resounding defeat for the GOP, a multi-ethnic constituency of Christian conservatives managed unexpected upset victories in Florida, Arizona, and California by passing resolutions against legalized gay marriage in those states.
Those victories suggest the rise of a new, non-aligned but decidedly right-leaning faction in American politics, the Rainbow Right.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Palin Pastor's Re-education Scheme "May Seem Like Totalitarianism"
Posted by Bruce Wilson on September 11, 2009 at 6:19 AM.
Pol Pot With a Fish Emblem on His Car ?
While Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has recently raised the specter of totalitarian government by warning about "death panels" she claims are part of the Obama Administration's health care plan, Palin herself has ties to a prominent Christian pastor who publicly advocates the establishment of a government regime that, in his own words, "may seem like totalitarianism" and would re-educate citizens in 'correct' decision making - an approach reminiscent of re-education campaigns during the Chinese communist Cultural Revolution or in Cambodia under Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Theocratic Arizona Pastor Gives 2nd "Death To Obama" Sermon
Posted by Bruce Wilson on September 1, 2009 at 11:23 AM.
Tempe, Arizona Independent Baptist preacher Steven Anderson has recently attracted national media attention after one of his parishioners showed up at an Arizona townhall meeting, that was attended by President Barack Obama, carrying a bullhorn and an AR15 semiautomatic assault rifle. One day before the event, Anderson gave a sermon entitled "Why I hate Barack Obama," in which the pastor declared he was praying for Obama's death and called on God to "melt" the president like a "[salted] snail."
Steven Anderson's August 16, 2009 sermon "Why I hate Barack Obama" was closely patterned after an even more virulently hateful sermon he gave on January 18, 2009, two days before Barack Obama's inauguration, in which the pastor declared that "somebody should abort Obama." Pastor Anderson has also called for the imposition of Biblical Law and Biblical government and stated that if he "were king" he would decree the execution of homosexuals and children who curse their parents.
[Below: Steven Anderson's January 18, 2009 sermon, which he has titled, on YouTube, "Barack Obama Melting Like a Snail." partial transcript of sermon.]
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
After 5 Years of Legal Gay Marriage, Massachusetts still has the lowest state divorce rate and Western Civilization is intact
Posted by Bruce Wilson on August 24, 2009 at 6:18 AM.
[below: A classic 2006 Daily Show episode examines claim that gay marriage has destroyed Massachsusetts.]
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Mass. Hysteria | ||||
| ||||
Opponents of same-sex marriage reject it on religious and moral grounds but also on practical ones. If we let homosexuals marry, they believe, a parade of horribles will follow -- the weakening of marriage as an institution, children at increased risk of broken homes, the eventual legalization of polygamy and who knows what all.
Well, guess what? We're about to find out if they're right. Unlike most public policy debates, this one is the subject of a gigantic experiment, which should definitively answer whether same-sex marriage will have a broad, destructive social impact.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire have all decided to let gays wed.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
MSNBC's Maddow Show Propels Growing Scandal Over Washington's "Christian Mafia"
Posted by Bruce Wilson on August 18, 2009 at 8:31 AM.
In a new August 17, 2009 Maddow show segment [link to MSNBC page with viewable show segment], Rachel Maddow and Jeff Sharlet discuss, among many new revelations, the disturbing fact that the "Christian Embassy" scandal, propelled by a complaint to the Department of Defense from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, was investigated by a Pentagon Inspector General who is in fact a Family member.
The Family, also known as "The Fellowship", is a secretive fundamentalist Washington DC ministry which runs the National Prayer Breakfast and Bible study groups attended by numerous US Senators and Congress members, wields global influence, and celebrates the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin, and Mao.
Over the course of the summer of 2009, Washington's Family-run "C Street House" has become notorious as a string of sex scandals have engulfed national GOP political figures who live at or have lived at, or attended Bible study classes at, the secretive former convent turned church-cum cheap-rent high end boarding house: Senator John Ensign, former Congressman Charles "Chip" Pickering, and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.
By far the story has been driven, first, by Jeff Sharlet, who wrote the 2008 book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at The Heart Of American Power, which followed Sharlet's 2003 Harper's expose' Jesus Plus Nothing. But MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who has pursued breaking new aspects of the festering scandal with a long-term dedication only rarely seen in mainstream media news coverage [see attached YouTube video segments], has played an invaluable role in giving the mafia-like "Family" widespread public exposure.
Maddow's willingness to cover the story of The Family and the C Street House in an ongoing manner, week to week over the summer, implicitly indicts much of mainstream news coverage as suffering from collective attention-deficit disorder; given the level of international, geopolitical influence The Family apparently wields, its members' penchant for describing their group as a Christian "mafia", and in light of Family head Doug Coe's zest for celebrating useful leadership lessons Coe says can be gleaned from studying Lenin's Bolsheviks, Mao's Red Guard willing to chop off their own parents' heads for the good of the revolutionary state, and Hitler's Nazis, it's nothing less than astonishing and appalling that most of mainstream news media has neglected for so long to dig further into revelations seeded in Jeff Sharlet's "The Family" book, which came out early in 2008.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
"Hispanic Karl Rove" Helps Shape Democratic Party "Centrist" Positions
Posted by Bruce Wilson on August 17, 2009 at 6:54 AM.
As a January 29, 2008 Chicago Tribune story observed, "[Reverend Samuel] Rodriguez, ... has been dubbed by some Christian leaders the Karl Rove of Hispanic evangelical strategy." When Rodriguez and Karl Rove met in late September 2008 for breakfast, as reported in an October 7, 2008 Newsweek story, Rove quipped, "If you're the Hispanic Karl Rove, then does that make me the Anglo Sam Rodriguez?"
Does Karl Rove help shape Democratic Party "Third Way" positions on reproductive and gay rights ? Well, no. But the "Hispanic Karl Rove" does. When not having breakfast with Karl Rove or railing against "radical Muslims","radical homosexuals","radical abortionists", and "Oprah Winfrey Christians", the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez can be found helping to shape the Third Way / Faith in Public Life "centrist" agenda on culture-war issues, such as gay and reproductive rights, in the "Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda" (CLURT) that was re-released with a flourish last January, 2009.
[below: audio from a sermon Rev. Samuel Rodriguez gave November 19, 2006, in a Utah church, in which Rodriguez railed against Muslims, homosexuals, abortionists, and "Oprah Winfrey Christians"]
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
How The Religious Right is Infiltrating the Democratic Party
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on August 13, 2009 at 8:00 AM.
'Hispanic Karl Rove' Helps Craft Democratic Party Centrist 'Third Way' Position on Gay & Reproductive Rights
"Progressives and evangelicals have begun to build coalitions on issue like the environment and Darfur, but we believe that we can go even further." - Rachel Laser
"We have radical Muslims. Radical homosexuals. Radical abortionists. We need radical, born again, spirit filled Christians to arise ! Do you follow me ? We don't need any sissy Christians, Oprah Winfrey Christians. We need prophetic, devil stomping, demon rebuking, blood washed, Bible believing, free-from-sin Christians !" - Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, prominent Come Let Us Reason Together Governing Agenda co-author.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Shooter Read Sexist Christian Author's Book Before Pittsburgh Female Aerobics Class Massacre
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on August 6, 2009 at 6:46 AM.
As George Sodini wrote on December 29, 2008, "Just got back from tanning, been doing this for a while. No gym today, my elbow is sore again. I actually look good. I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne - yet 30 million women rejected me - over an 18 or 25-year period."
On Tuesday August 4th, 2009, computer systems analyst Sodini walked into a Pittsburgh gym, pulled guns out of a duffle bag, turned off the lights, and sprayed bullets into a LA Fitness Center woman's aerobics class of roughly thirty, killing three. The leader of the class, who had just announced that she was pregnant, was wounded along with at least eight others, some of whom were shot multiple times.
Media analysis has so far ignored or glossed over Sodini's religious affiliations but the shooter's Internet diary suggest his last readings were the Bible and a book by a Texas evangelist, R.B. Thieme, Jr. who has written that husbands own their wives, as literal property and promoted an odd teaching that for each man on Earth there exists only one correct "right woman" in all creation.
According to Thieme, men can recognize their divinely-appointed opposites without physical contact, through something Thieme called "soul climax" [ see R.B. Thieme, Jr.'s "Doctrines of The Bible: Doctrine of Right Man and Right Woman" (Microsoft Word Document format) ]
After perpetrating the massacre, Sodini committed suicide. He left behind chilling weblog entries outlining his intended plan. According to forensic psychologists such as former FBI agent and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett, Sodini fit a classic "shooter" profile. Garrett told ABC that Sodini, "spends a lot of time in his blog talking about how he was mistreated as a child. He felt he went through life feeling no one cared for him, loved him or nurtured him. As he got older, he likely isolated himself more and more and was able to justify his disturbing behavior. His perceived rejection justifies his actions."
George Sodini's weblog lays considerable blame for his self-admitted psychological problems on the Pittsburgh-based Tetelestai Church which by his account Sodini attended for 13 years, up through 2006. The pastor of Tetelestai, James R. Knapp, is one of a few luminaries in the small fundamentalist universe under the sway of Texas evangelist and prolific author R.B. Thieme, Jr. -- a retired US Air Force Colonel known to wear his old military uniform while giving sermons who has been accused of cultic and authoritarian practices and wrote doctrine asserting that "[a] married woman is the property of the man she marries."
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Nationally Prominent Mega-Pastor Claims Hitler Was a "Half-Breed Jew"
Posted by Bruce Wilson, Talk To Action on August 1, 2009 at 7:56 AM.
In May 2008, then-GOP presidential candidate John McCain renounced a hard-won political endorsement senator McCain had gained from Texas megachurch pastor and Christians United For Israel founder John Hagee only a few months prior, after mainstream media picked up on an audio recording, from a sermon Hagee gave in late 2005, in which pastor Hagee stated his view that Hitler and the Nazis were divine agents sent by God to chase Europe's Jews towards Palestine. Scrutiny of Hagee has to this day failed to notice an even more offensive statement; in his book "Jerusalem Countdown", still on bookseller shelves in 2009, John Hagee claimed that Adolf Hitler was born from a lineage of accursed, genocidally murderous "half-breed Jews."
Since May 2008, both media coverage of, and Democratic Party attendance at, Hagee's CUFI events have slacked off dramatically, while Hagee has sought to regain the national media spotlight. A July 20th, 2009 "exclusive interview" Hagee gave with US News and World Report's Dan Gilgoff suggests the effort made be bearing fruit.
But friendly and uncritical treatments of Hagee such as Gilgoff's can only serve to rehabilitate CUFI kingpin John Hagee's reputation to the extent that they ignore the established record of Hagee's anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic sermon statements and writings as well as John Hagee's history of promoting of crackpot conspiracy theories claiming Jewish bankers rule America through the Federal Reserve and the Texas pastor's pattern aggressive and determined campaigning for a Mideast war. Hagee's Federal Reserve conspiracy theories bear considerable resemblance to similar theories promoted by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party prior to and during World War Two.
In the "revised and updated" 2007 version of John Hagee'a book 'Jerusalem Countdown' on page 149 in a chapter with the ominous title `Who Is a Jew?", Hagee wrote,
"God promised to be at war with the descendants of Esau and Amalek forever...
Esau's descendants would produce a lineage that would attack and slaughter the Jews for centuries. Esau's descendants included Haman, whose diabolical mind conceived the "final solution" of the Old Testament--the extermination of all Jews living in Persia. It was Esau's descendants who produced the half-breed Jews of history who have persecuted and murdered the Jews beyond human comprehension.
Adolf Hitler was a distant descendant of Esau."
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
John Ensign's Church Head Endorsed Sex-With-Succubus Economic Theory
Posted by Bruce Wilson on July 25, 2009 at 8:27 AM.
What drives economic boom-and-bust cycles and stock market fluctuations ? In the late 1970's, the Texas oil tycoon Hunt brothers caused a mammoth speculative bubble in world silver prices by buying up between fifty and seventy five percent of the precious metal. This spring, 2009, a new Rolling Stone Magazine story claimed that the financial investment firm Goldman Sachs "has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression."
But Van Nuys, California based megachurch pastor Jack Hayford, current head of sex-scandal embroiled GOP Senator John Ensign's religious denomination, has endorsed a theory proposing that a supernatural mechanism drove down Japanese stock market prices during the early 1990's: the Japanese emperor's alleged sexual intercourse with a "sky goddess" who, according to the theory, might be a succubus.
[image, right: a 20th Century succubus]
Footage from a 1993 evangelical video shows Hayford enthusiastically introducing and endorsing a talk during which his colleague C. Peter Wagner claimed that the early 1990's economic downturn of the Japanese economy was due to what Wagner depicted as a Shinto ritual in which Japanese emperors have sexual intercourse with a demonic sky-goddess being that, posited Wagner, may have been a succubus. Wagner blamed slack Japanese stock prices on the alleged tryst. As British religious scholar Richard Bartholomew notes, C. Peter Wagner's treatment of the Shinto ceremony is factually dubious on a number of counts.
US GOP Senator John Ensign belongs to the 5-10 million member (estimates vary) denomination, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which Church on The Way Pastor Jack Hayford has headed for 5 years. Hayford gave the benediction at former president George W. Bush's 2001 inaugural prayer service. In 2006 Senator Ensign addressed the Foursquare Gospel International Church's yearly convention via a videotaped message. In 2003, Ensign traveled to Philadelphia and addressed the yearly Foursquare Gospel convention in person.
Jack Hayford has also been one of the regularly featured speakers at Promise Keepers events. The Promise Keepers, a men's ministry which John Ensign joined in college, held rallies during the 1990's with up to several hundred thousand participants and has promoted evangelists who practice demon deliverance, otherwise known as exorcism.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
EMAIL
PRINT
63 COMMENTS
PERMALINK