Craziest Republican of the Day: Tim Scott

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Via twitter: 

"The greatest minority under attack today are Christians. No doubt about it," says Rep. Tim Scott. 

-- Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn)

Oh, totally. I mean, just consider the bigoted virulence of the war against same-faith marriage. No way we can have crazy evangelicals and Catholics procreating within the confines of a state-sanctioned union.

And no way can we have Christians building community centers in the rough vicinity of Ground Zero. Not to mention all that ugly profiling of Christians at airports. Terrorists they are, what with their "Sunday schools" and "Bible camps."

They're on the margins, these "God"-fearin', Tebow-lovin' wackos.

Thank "God" they have no voice in politics.

Thank "God" they have no power.

Thank "God" there isn't a major political party that has made the establishment of Christian theocracy a core element of its platform, with leading figures all across the country dedicated to an extremist Christian agenda.

Today should absolutely be called Martin Luther Day instead. These poor, oppressed Jesus freaks have a dream too!

This self-denying, reality-denying African-American Republican totally has a point.

Thanks, Rep. Scott!

Republicans aren't reading their Bibles

By Nicholas Wilbur

Whether you're Christian or Jewish, God makes a pretty clear case against selfish ambition and hypocrisy in both testaments of the Bible.

Source: WMX Design

Remember Cain, the first man born on Earth? Cain was cursed by the Lord for killing his brother, but Cain's first sin (one always leads to another) was selfish ambition. While his brother, Abel, sacrificed the first-born of his flock, Cain offered only defiled fruit (the assumption being that he kept the good shit – probably the chocolate-covered strawberries – for himself.)

In the Gospel of John, when the scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman who'd been accused of adultery, they cited the law of Moses, which commanded that such a woman be stoned. Jesus said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her."

The morals of these stories are self-explanatory, but for those who aren't keeping up on their studies (I won't name names, yet), they are straightforward warnings against selfish ambition and hypocrisy.

Republicans would be wise to take note.

From The New York Times:

In last year's campaigns, Republicans ripped into Democrats for failing to perform one of Congress's most basic duties: providing money in a timely way for the operations of government. But Republicans acknowledged Thursday that they would miss the deadline they had promised to meet. They began to rush a stopgap spending bill through the House because, they said, Congress could not finish work on any of the 12 regular appropriations bills before the new fiscal year starts in two weeks, on Oct. 1... [T]he stopgap bill includes $3.65 billion in assistance for people affected by Hurricane Irene, wildfires, floods, tornadoes and other natural disasters. Of this amount, $1 billion would be offset by cutting a loan guarantee program for production of more fuel-efficient cars.

The obvious critique of GOP hypocrisy is that the same Republicans who "ripped Democrats" throughout the 2010 midterm campaign for not passing an appropriations bill on time suddenly are finding that they, too, are having a difficult time with such "basic" duties.

The greater hypocrisy, however, is that the same party that has been attacking President Obama and congressional Democrats for failing to stimulate job creation is now vying for cuts to an auto industry that just recently returned to the black"

Democrats and an auto industry expert warn the funds [Republicans] picked to pay for disaster aid is currently supporting a successful program that has pulled manufacturing jobs back from other countries and helped keep the industry alive around the eastern Midwest. Taking the money away would jeopardize that program.

Though I'm no theologian, I don't think there's anything in the Bible saying idiots don't get into heaven. That said, I bet if the Pope picked up the big red phone on his nightstand and gave the Man Upstairs a ring, He'd relay a reminder to the masses that while ignorance is not sinful, willful idiocy is definitely frowned upon.

Rep. Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia,
House Majority Leader, Big Oil Toady 

Fuel-efficient cars are the future. Even your average NASCAR T-shirt-wearin', Budweiser drinkin', gun totin' Texan wouldn't mind paying a little less for gasoline – especially if it meant eliminating America's dependency on foreign oil.

The problem, of course, is corporate profits. Fuel-efficient cars burn less gasoline, gasoline is made from oil, and oil is a gold mine – a gold mine that donates heavily to the Republican Party.

So far in the 2011-12 election cycle, the oil and gas lobby already has contributed $4.5 million to the GOP (compared to $670,000 to the Democratic Party).

Just as the oil and gas lobby has a role in the fuel-efficiency debate, so too does the insurance industry play a role in the disaster relief debate.

When the majority leader of the United States House of Representatives – of the "people's house" of Congress – told us, "the people," the masses and the voting public, that the federal government will provide disaster relief only after Congress agrees on another round of spending cuts, some thought it was career suicide.

In a statement to the press after a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit Virginia on August 24, Virginia congressman and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor admitted that "the federal government does have a role in situations like this," but just how immediate or significant that response should be was up to him and the rest of the Republicans in Congress.

"[T]hose monies will be offset with appropriate savings or cost-cutting elsewhere," he said. 

When I first read this, it seemed like just one more example of anti-government right-wingers trying to tarnish the image of the U.S. government in the eyes of the American people by setting up another politically divisive, partisan and months-long congressional battle over budget issues that not only will postpone financial assistance to communities, but which also will perpetuate the idea that the federal government is incompetent, unhelpful and, in turn, unnecessary.

Since then, I've been reminded of what the Roman poet Phaedrus said: "Things are not always what they seem."

It was a less-publicized statement by Cantor that provided context to his seemingly callous, heartless, and politically motivated words:

"Obviously," he said, "the problem is that people in Virginia don't have earthquake insurance."

Earthquake insurance!

A quick perusal of OpenSecrets.org shows that Cantor's biggest contributor in the 2011-12 election cycle is... AN INSURANCE COMPANY!

The guy who's fighting to cut investments in fuel-efficient cars is not only the sixth biggest recipient of oil and gas contributions this election cycle, he's also the third largest recipient of insurance contributions.

I won't make any accusations – that's sinful – but I will make the observation that the leader of the majority party in "the people's house" of Congress is acting exactly like a pitchman for the insurance industry and a profiteer for oil companies.

It appears this disaster relief / fuel-efficiency budget cut issue isn't just about conservatives and their fiscal hawkishness. It's about money.

When you get to the Pearly Gates, ye Republicans, and St. Peter asks about how you fought so ardently to cut American investments in resource- and money-saving technologies, how you hypocritically dismissed the experts who warned that such actions would result in the very elimination of both jobs and MADE in AMERICA goods that you campaigned on in 2010, how you chose politics over the rebuilding of your own communities, and how you did all of this because your selfish ambition for campaign donations from corporate lobbyists blinded you from the suffering of those whose homes and businesses were ravaged by disasters, what will be your defense?

(Being as you're not keeping up on your Bible studies, I'll warn you not to lie. That's sinful, too.)

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

HBO's Koran By Heart: Can't contest this documentary's greatness

By Edward Copeland

This week's installment in HBO Documentary Films' summer series, Koran By Heart, is being promoted mainly as a film about the International Holy Koran Competition where young Muslims from around the world descend on Cairo to compete in a spelling bee-like competition testing their skills at reciting the Koran, both in terms of memorization and presentation. While that is the major focus of director Greg Barker's film, Koran By Heart tackles so much more than the competition and contains a richness and universality that makes the documentary a film that should be required viewing for everyone.

The documentary covers the 2010 competition which, as the contest always has, occurs during the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan, which begins today and commemorates the month when the first verses of the Koran were said to have been revealed to Mohammed. Because of the Arab Spring, particularly with Hosni Mubarak's ouster in Egypt, it wasn't clear if there would be an International Holy Koran Competition this year, especially in Cairo. Google news searches could find similar contests being held in Iran and Saudi Arabia, but no mention of the large contest or, of the documentary's most fascinating figure, Dr. Salem Abdel-Galil, deputy minister of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Egypt, who coordinates the contest. I could find no news stories indicating if this self-proclaimed moderate Muslim warning against extremism and fundamentalists still holds his post, but found that he does have a public figure page on Facebook.

Dr. Salem does take on a monumental task in arranging the event. He lets his staff handle the logistics, which would be overwhelming alone, making certain that 110 competitors from 70 different countries all make it to Cairo for the event. They range in age from their early 20s to as young as 7 and some, even the young ones, come without adult chaperones. The reciters, as they are called, all are Muslims, but all hail from different parts of the world and have learned to memorize the Koran in Arabic even though many do not speak Arabic and don't understand the content of what they are saying. While Salem's staff takes care of the administrative side, he concerns himself with what he calls "the creative" side, namely orchestrating how the contest runs. He chooses the questions and decides the criteria for judging the reciters. "The Koran is the only book that can be completely memorized. It's a miracle children can memorize it even without understanding its meaning," Dr. Salem says. I hate to differ with him, but being raised in the Bible Belt, I've known a lot of people who can recite Bible verses to you and if you try, anything can be memorized. Dr. Salem also has other duties with his job unrelated to the annual contest. He oversees 100,000 mosques and also is a well-known media personality in Egypt, hosting his own weekly TV show, The Final Word, where he preaches his message of moderate Islam and being true to the Koran, saying extremism and terrorism goes against Mohammed's teachings. As he says when we first meet him in the film:

"The irresponsible actions you see in some Muslims are because they are estranged from the Koran or don't understand the Koran. So stealing, sex outside of marriage, intoxication, injustice, aggression and terrorism — these are not allowed"

With 110 competitors, that would be a daunting task for filmmakers as well so director Greg Barker chooses to focus on three 10-year-olds from different parts of the globe:

Nabiollah, who lives in rural Tajikistan and attends a Madrassa where the only education he receives concerns the Koran.

Rifdha, a very smart girl from the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean who excels in all subjects, especially math and science, and is one of only 10 girls in the contest, though her parents have very different visions for her future.

Djamil, who is coming to Cairo by himself from his home in Senegal in West Africa, and has been told by his teacher that he won't just be representing Senegal but the entire continent as well.

Djamil feels an extra burden on his shoulders since his father is a respected imam in Senegal, though the boy has risen to be the country's top reciter without being able to speak a word of Arabic. He tells the filmmakers that his parents told him to learn the Koran before anything else and that every Muslim should do the same. Besides, Djamil adds, he "likes the way the letters look." Djamil's teacher sounds a message similar to that of Dr. Salem's as he prepares to send his star pupil off to Cairo by himself. "Now as you go to Egypt, the world is a mess. People are bombing and killing each other, but if all people understood Koran, there would be peace on Earth," the teacher tells the 10-year-old. "So by not using the Koran as God intended, what is the result? All these problems in the world and what is the solution? Return to the Koran. Learn it. Apply it." It still seems odd to be sending a 10-year-old child off on his own to another country, especially one where he doesn't speak the language. Later, once Djamil has arrived in Cairo, there's a scene where he's trying to speak with his mother on a cell phone, but the connection proves so terrible that neither can hear the other. It shows the family in Senegal saying they must have faith that Djamil will be OK.

Above and beyond the fascinating material itself in Koran By Heart, is the way that director Barker approaches it. At times, it's as if you're watching a feature film instead of a documentary. His direction can be quite stylish, the contest itself automatically creates suspense, he tosses in extra details for both color and, sometimes, laughs as in one instance where some visiting judges are congregating in a lobby and one says to the others, "At my hotel, the call to prayer is done Saudi-style morning, noon and night. Are we in Egypt or what?" which makes the others laugh. There also is something intrinsically funny when we briefly meet Australian Muslims speaking with full-on Aussie accents. Barker's most intriguing touch though is how he layers more information about the people and places we've seen by leaping both backward and forward in time to reveal more. For example, we don't learn until much later in the film that before Nabiollah, the boy from Tajikistan, left for Cairo, the secular government of Tajikistan had closed his Madrassa, trying to clamp down on any rise in extremism. His father took him to a secular school to see if he could be admitted there and we learn that Nabiollah is functionally illiterate. Since the Madrassa only taught the Koran, the 10-year-old can't even read or write in his native language of Tajik, let alone Arabic.

The competition itself makes marathon poker players look like wimps since they get breaks and can eat and drink at the table. The International Holy Koran Competition has qualifying rounds first that last three days and nights — during Ramadan, which means everyone fasts during the day, though they break for the traditional sunset meal. The night session begins at 9:30 p.m. and lasts until 3 a.m. Rifdha actually falls asleep on her father's shoulder waiting for her name to be called. Her father, who will turn out to be the most extreme person depicted in the documentary, never stops being negative and even after Rifdha shakes herself awake and recites, when she returns to her seat, he immediately tells her that she won't make it to the next round so while Rifdha might be happy when she learns she's received 97%, the highest score of the competition so far, her father just looks pissed. How the contest works is that a reciter selects a symbol on a computer screen which randomly selects a question, beginning a passage from the Koran and telling the contestant where he or she should end. It's like Songburst, except they give you the ending. If a reciter makes a mistake and corrects him or herself, they lose half a point. If a judge has to correct them, they lose a whole point. If they make three mistakes, they forfeit the question. The judges enter scores on their computers, which calculate. 100% is the highest score. They are judged on pronunciation, memorization and "The Rules of Tajwid."

This isn't just dry recitation, there's a musical quality to it. Kristina Nelson, considered the top non-Muslim expert on the contest and author of The Art of Reciting the Qur'an, was attracted by this lyrical aspect. She, as well as the judges are extremely impressed by how good Nabiollah is; he even moves some judges to tears and they make a point of hugging and kissing him when he's finished his performance. Though it's just the beauty of his voice — strictly speaking he doesn't follow the Rules of Tajwid to the letter, but the boy had never heard of them until he came to Cairo. He closes his eyes tightly when he recites to avoid distractions and so he can visualize the text before him. Even though Nabiollah and other non-Arabic reciters don't know what they are saying, Dr. Salem says that the level of Heaven that Muslims reach depend on how much of the Koran they have memorized. According to Nelson, the full text of the Koran runs about 600 pages with 114 chapters ranging from three verses to 286 verses long.

While Nabiollah gets by fine without knowing Arabic, it ends up being Djamil's downfall, who unfortunately gets a Koran verse that starts like multiple verses in the book. The judges try to get the young Senegalese boy on the right track, but he of course doesn't understand a word that they are saying, though he keeps trying, through tears, he keeps trying. The judges finally have to stop Djamil who only scores 22%. Because everyone felt so bad for Djamil but admired his perseverance in trying to continue, they arrange for him to recite at one of Cairo's most prestigious mosques. When he goes home to Senegal, he admits things did not go well, but he's able to say so with a smile on his face. After the initial three days of qualifying, 12 of the 110 move on to the finals which are held on national TV before the country's president, still Hosni Mubarak then, and both Nabiollah and Rifdah make the final 12. I won't spoil how they finish for you. With a few days off, they get to sightsee, something else that alienates Rifdah's father who talks more about moving the family away from the Maldives when they get back and how Egyptians aren't very good Muslims.

The director frequently cuts back to the Maldives where we see Rifdah's mother brag about her and we've seen how different the place is. When we first meet Rifdah, she's speaking English and we meet another man in the Maldives who explains how it's always been a secular Muslim country, where women were allowed to work and go about uncovered but that a fundamentalism started to reassert itself in the 1980s. While Koran By Heart doesn't raise the issue, I find it interesting that the extremist Muslims wanting a return to fundamentalism started to occur first in Iran in the late 1970s and elsewhere in the 1980s — the same time fundamentalist Christian groups such as The Moral Majority starting asserting themselves politically in the U.S. and rabid activist groups such as Operation Rescue started protested abortion in less-than-peaceful ways. Another quote that Dr. Salem says in the film really brought home that connection to me:

"The fundamentalist movement is not good for society. They want Islam to turn back the clock on society. Not long ago, they wanted to ban television…Unfortunately those who promote extremism have satellite TV channels with huge audiences and they get a lot of money and they present themselves as 'the voice of Islam' So their voice is louder than ours and we're the moderates. This is very dangerous."

Just substitute Christianity for Islam and think of the late Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. They might not have a body count that comes close to equaling Islamic extremists such as al-Qaida, but it does seem as if they've followed the same timeline, only one group of religious fanatics chose force while the other has chosen political infiltration.

While I won't give away how Nabiollah and Rifdah finish, that to me is what makes this great documentary end on a sad note. We see Rifdah's mother say she'd like her to go into math or science, but it will ultimately be up to her, but her father has different ideas, insisting that though he plans to move the family to Yemen for better religious education and that Rifdah will be educated, ultimately, she will be a housewife.

Koran By Heart is one of the best documentaries HBO has offered this summer. It debuts at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific and 8 p.m. Central tonight on HBO. 

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Passion play

By Capt. Fogg

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

___________

If you managed to get through grade school, you've read this many times, but it never seems to influence the way Americans act or feel: a syndrome that seems more influenced by mob psychology and sectarian chauvinism than anything else. Of course, it's long been this way and we've long been a xenophobic and gullible nation, but with the advent of round-the-clock swineherds like Fox News, the grunting and squealing of feral-hog America is drowning out the voice of our founding fathers and of decent men and women everywhere. 

[E]ven if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service. (Ben Franklin) 

The same folks who want to persecute Muslims for their religion and prohibit the free exercise thereof will assert, without twitching their nostrils at the smell of hypocrisy, that this is a Christian nation and that Christian laws, whatever they might be, supersede our national laws about abortion, birth control, spending government funds on Christian activities, and browbeating children into theological submission. It's not okay that a Muslim man doesn't want to drink alcohol or a Jew doesn't want to eat pork, but it's fine that a Christian pharmacist refuses to dispense condoms. Damn the Constitution, we're a Christian nation. The laws of other religions need not apply, and, in fact, although there is no chance whatever that the United States will adopt the Qur'an as a replacement for the Constitution and its body of laws, it's not enough for the grunting pigs of God who would like to make the free exercise of Islam illegal. 

He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. (Isaiah 53:3) 

The latest crusade seems to be about portraying every comment by every Muslim as an example of Sharia, from a cabby in Detroit asking that he not be forced to transport alcohol to someone praying in Arabic in front of the White House. According to one witness, he was asking for a blessing on those "Christians" who seemed oblivious to the staggering irony of a mob mocking and cursing a bearded man, bent in prayer, forgiving them for persecuting him. None of this has anything to do with any effort to replace our laws and courts with Islamic laws or Islamic judges, nor can it since no effort exists. As to the rules of private observance, let's let only Christians do that! The only credible attempt of theocratic pretenders to the throne is of course by self-styled Christians, as the porcine squeals of the glossolalians Palin and Huckabee would prove. 

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen... (George Washington) 

Perhaps it's fortunate that such people are stupid enough to hoist themselves with their own petty petards. You'll recall, and perhaps with a smile, Oklahoma's attempt to thwart the non-existent Islamic takeover by attempting a tin-foil-hat law banning all religious commands -- which in effect banned the Jewish commandments they had been trying to insert into American life, but we can't afford to depend on their congenital stupidity when so much is at stake. And yes, it takes a stupid man to think that somehow Americans would decide to write Sharia or Islamic tribal practices into American law in open defiance of the Constitution or that the tiny percentage of Muslim Americans would somehow magically or accidentally do it by themselves.

The courts have decisively ruled that the establishment and free exercise clauses forbid the federal and state governments to prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion or atheism. The Torah, the Bible, the Qur'an, the Gita, the works of Nietzsche: state or federal government may not adopt any of them as preferable, much less mandatory. But we're a little people, a silly people -- greedy, barbarous, and cruel people, if I might borrow from T.E. Lawrence -- and a cowardly, ignorant, and hateful people as well. "Conservative" legislators continue and will persist in thriving on our traditional sins by inventing threats that must be countered by measures to accelerate our inexorable descent into loserhood. They'll continue to demonize the way their predecessors demonized German, Irish, Italian, Mexican, African, Catholic, Jewish, Chinese, and Indian immigrants, and history will continue to prove them wrong.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Running against history, Rick Santorum defends the Crusades

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Rick Santorum is insane. And he doesn't know anything about history either:

Rick Santorum launched into a scathing attack on the left, charging during an appearance in South Carolina that the history of the Crusades has been corrupted by "the American left who hates Christendom."

"The idea that the Crusades and the fight of Christendom against Islam is somehow an aggression on our part is absolutely anti-historical," Santorum said in Spartanburg on Tuesday. "And that is what the perception is by the American left who hates Christendom."

He added, "They hate Western civilization at the core. That's the problem."

After asserting that Christianity had not shown any "aggression" to the Muslim world, the former Pennsylvania senator — who is considering a 2012 run for the White House — argued that American intervention in the Middle East helps promote "core American values."

So he's defending the Crusades and directly linking them, a bloodthirsty, rapacious, avaricious assault on the "Holy Land" and on Islam generally, to the Iraq War and other warmongering interventions (i.e., invasions) in the Middle East?

It's like he's trying to out-Palin Palin. Which of course he is. He's dropping hints about running, he's making high-profile appearances in early-primary states like South Carolina, and he's evidently trying to capture the right-wing Republican base that loves Palin in order to succeed against the likes of Romney and Pawlenty -- the former who has yet to win over conservatives (and who never will) and who will only win moderates and perhaps business-oriented conservatives, the latter who is trying desperately to come across as a hardcore social conservative but who is a dull midwestern governor who may only win establishment Republicans, if anyone at all. Should Palin not run, there will be room in the race for a far-righter. It may not be Huckabee, who's a bit of a renegade anyway, and it won't be Pence, and it's not Rubio's time yet, and no doubt most of the smarter Republicans realize it's a long shot to beat Obama in any event, so maybe it'll be Santorum who fills the void.

Makes sense, even if Santorum himself does not.

I would just note, getting back to the Crusades, that it's not really a "scathing" attack if it's completely crazy and utterly ill-founded.

And it doesn't mean you hate Christianity, and certainly not "Western Civilization," when you point out that the Crusades were pretty bloody violent and that the Christians who went on them were not entirely motivated by those noble and supposedly "Christian" ideals of peace, love, and understanding. They were about conquering the Holy Land, yes, but also about raping and plundering and making off with as much booty as possible, and the targets were not just Muslims but Jews and others as well, including other, non-Roman Catholic Christians (Santorum, by the way, is Roman Catholic), and of course domestic politics played into them as well. (It was all quite complicated, much more complicated than Santorum's ignorantly superficial revisionism suggests.)

To anyone who actually cares about, and seeks to understand, history, Santorum's claim is simply ridiculous. But of course he's appealing not to those who care about history, nor to those who live in reality and seek to deal with reality as is, but to the Republican base, to those who live deeply embedded in ignorance, delusion, and deception, willfully or otherwise.

It's too early to say how well he's doing, but he's sure going for it.

(image)

The rage of the Narnia cultists

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Sorry, Liam Neeson. I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, and I wish Aslan really did symbolize "Mohammed, Buddha and all the great spiritual leaders and prophets over the centuries," but, alas, The Chronicles of Narnia is Christian propaganda, pure and simple:

Walter Hooper, [C.S.] Lewis's former secretary and a trustee of his estate, said the author would have been outraged.

"It is nothing whatever to do with Islam," he said.

"Lewis would have simply denied that. He wrote that the 'whole Narnian story is about Christ'. Lewis could not have been clearer."

He attributed Neeson's remarks to political correctness and a desire to be "very multicultural", adding: "I don't know Liam Neeson or what he is thinking about... but it was not Lewis's intention."

Like I said, it's propaganda, aimed at children. I read the books as a child. Now I know better. And the fact that the books and movies have been embraced by the Christianist right just makes it worse.

It's enough to turn me into a Harry Potter fan.

Isaac and Ishmael

By R.K. Barry

Just after 9/11, the producers of the The West Wing realized that, as a show all about politics, they couldn't very well ignore recent events. At the same time, they couldn't really make 9/11 an integral part of the show as the The West Wing didn't track current events but rather had its own story line about an imagined White House. The compromise was to have senior White House staff find themselves in a "lock-down" with a group of high school students during what turns out to be a not serious security breach. The episode was called Isaac and Ishmael.

For the episode, White House staff engage the students about a number of issues including the causes of terrorism and how to address it. In what I thought at the time was an extremely interesting exchange, the character of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman, played by Bradley Witford, asks the students what the American equivalent of Islamic terrorists would be. After some discussion, it is agreed that the Klu Klux Klan would fit the bill.

The point he was making was clear: sometimes extremists do awful things in the name of a twisted view of their own religion. But adherents to the same religion don't always believe all the same things (thank God). The KKK is ostensibly Christian, which you can tell by the crosses they like to burn, but very few decent church-going Americans would identify with them. Maybe we should start calling the KKK "Christian extremists" just in case the fact that not all Christians are extremists should need some clarification.

Watching Bill O'Reilly's recent appearance on The View reminded me of this West Wing episode. O'Reilly kept saying that the reason we shouldn't build a community centre within blocks of ground zero is because the terrorists who attacked America were Islamic. I know logic is not O'Reilly's strong suit, but he really should work on that and parhaps watch a few old episodes of the West Wing.

Another thing that bothered me greatly about what O'Reilly had to say is his blaring claim that 70% of Americans don't want the Islamic community centre there. I don't know, maybe that number is true, but what if it is? I have said this before and I will say it again, what if we did a poll of white southerners in the 1960s about whether or not schools and colleges in the south should be integrated? What do you suppose those numbers would look like?

For those who fell asleep during this part of their own education, America is a liberal democracy or constitutional democracy, not a direct democracy. We have a constitution that sets limits on what we can and can't do by a simple show of hands. I've always thought that was pretty sensible. For a bunch a people who talk a big game about adhering to the Constitution, O'Reilly and his bunch really have no idea what that would mean.

School's out.

(Cross-posted from Lippmann's Ghost.)

Do witches masturbate?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Christine O'Donnell. We know the type, don't we? Once a "sinner," now a moralist. Something at some point must have gone wrong for her, just as it usually does for those who end up seeking religious redemption in the form of born-again fundamentalism. (O'Donnell is Roman Catholic, but she exhibits all the signs of evangelical Protestant fundamentalism.) Maybe it was an overwhelming sense of guilt that finally got to her, guilt implanted through her Catholic upbringing. Maybe she found herself alone and without purpose, unable to cope, longing desperately to belong. This is how cults, including organized religions, find their followers. Maybe it was a guy who dumped her. Whatever the case, something turned her into what she is now, a Christian theocrat who, as many of her kind do, obsesses about masturbation and pornography, wallowing in the "sin" she abhors. (What strikes me about these moralists is how they seem to be fascinated by, and perhaps turned on by, the details of "sin." They traffic in stories of redemption and conversion, but those stories depend on detailed accounts of the "sin" that is being left behind. This, I would argue, is their pornography, just as much as the blood sacrifice that is the core of Christianity.)

Anyway, we should hardly be surprised that O'Donnell's past is, well... colourful. For example...

As Think Progress is reporting, last night on HBO's Real Time, host Bill Maher played a previously unaired clip of O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999 episode of his former show, Politically Incorrect (on which O'Donnell was a frequent guest). Let's just say the clip was rather revealing:

I dabbled into witchcraft -- I never joined a coven. But I did, I did... I dabbled into witchcraft. I hung around people who were doing these things. I'm not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do. [...]

One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn't know it. I mean, there's little blood there and stuff like that... We went to a movie and then had a midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

Now, do I care that she "dabbled" in witchcraft when she was younger? No, not really. It might bother me if she were a witch now, but people do all sorts of things when they're young, some of them quite stupid. But I find it interesting that this anti-sex Christian extremist, who is now all about self-control (but really self-denial, the denial of human nature) dabbled in just the sort of "sin" she now condemns. This doesn't make her special. I suspect that many such moralists were rather adventurous in their pre-moralistic days. But it does make you realize that her whole campaign against sex (other than the procreative sex authorized by the Vatican) is really about herself, about her guilt and about doing everything she can to avoid slipping back into the "sin" of which she partook. It's about denying who she really is as a human being (and denying her nature, which, I suspect, would very much like to pleasure itself) and lying to herself about right and wrong. This is what all religion is, of course. With her, it's just so obvious.

**********

And it's no wonder she's running for cover, backing out of scheduled TV appearances tomorrow, on CBS's Face the Nation and even Fox News.

One suspects her campaign didn't have withcraft-related talking points ready.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Christine O'Donnell

By Michael J.W. Stickings

TPM has the sordid details (read the whole post for even more craziness):

Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell has a robust evangelical outreach program, and she's appealed to these voters in her Republican primary bid in part with her old-fashioned views about sex.

O'Donnell has said, for example, that masturbation is wrong, and that looking at pornography is equivalent to cheating on your spouse. She outlined her views in a November 1998 article titled "The Case for Chastity" for Cultural Dissident.

Abstinence, apparently, isn't good enough. What is needed is the near-complete denial of human sexuality, and human nature, the repression, presumably enforced where possible by repressive theocracy, of every individual's sexual freedom and sexuality generally.

O'Donnell has a pretty face, to be sure, but it's also the face of Christian extremism. Her views aren't just "old-fashioned," they're dangerously ignorant.

I mean, seriously, what's wrong with taking your talents to South Beach now and then? And if it helps to watch some of whatever it is you happen to be into, as long as it's legal, so what?

I'd tell O'Donnell to go fuck herself, but obviously she never would. Right?

Craziest Republican of the Day: John Fleming

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yes, let's give the award today to the congressman from Louisiana, for taking us right back to the Crusades:

We are either going to go down the socialist road and become like western Europe and create, I guess really a godless society, an atheist society. Or we're going to continue down the other pathway where we believe in freedom of speech, individual liberties and that we remain a Christian nation. So we're going to have to win that battle, we're going to have to solve that argument before we can once again reach across and work together on things.

Where -- oh where -- to begin? Well, let's just make a few points, however obvious: 

1) Western Europe is more "socialist" than the U.S., yes, but much of it, these days, is run by conservatives: Cameron in the U.K., Merkel in Germany, Sarkozy in France. Last time I checked, Europe is still capitalist, with major corporations that dominate the world and a dynamic continental economy that is doing better the U.S.

2) Western Europe may be less religious than the U.S., but it's hardly atheist. Last time I checked, countries like Italy and Spain are deeply Christian.

3) Obviously, Fleming is expressing a black-white worldview that is wholly without nuance (and wrong). But, even if he's right that the two options are Christianity and atheism -- they're not, but let's play along -- how is it that Christianity promotes freedom and liberty while atheism does not? If anything, the reverse is true. While this is a generalization, I admit, Christianity has long been the enemy of freedom and liberty, as is it today with the theocratic fundamentalist Christianity that is so politically powerful in the U.S. If you really want to be free, do away with Christianity (and religion generally). Actually, just oppose the sort of Christianity Fleming seems to want to govern American society, a Christianity that seeks to impose a moral code that is decidedly against freedom, including the freedom not to be that sort of Christian and to believe in other gods, or none at all. The alternative to such Christianity is not necessarily atheism, which can, I admit, be absolutist, but the removal of religion from the public sphere and the freedom to believe what we want to believe in private.

4) Like so many on the right, Fleming doesn't know the Constitution, or what America is all about, or at least distorts it to suit his theocratic agenda. Is America a Christian nation? In terms of sheer numbers, Christianity may be the largest religion in the U.S., but no, it isn't. Last time I checked, the Constitution, that document of which conservatives are supposedly so enamored, what with all their high-falutin' talk about the original intent of the Framers, does not establish a state religion and does not endorse one religion over any other. Isn't that supposedly what America is all about, founded in direct contrast to Europe, the Old World, where countries, as well as sub-national states, imposed state religions on oppressed peoples, usually some form of Christianity or other, and a long and bloody history driven largely by religious belief and religious hatred had dominated the entire continent, pushing so many to find freedom in the New World across the ocean?

5) It is not just incredibly ignorant but disturbingly dangerous to paint American politics as the battlefield of a civilizational clash, whether between Christians and Muslims or between Christians and atheists. It is a gross misrepresentation, of course, but also an invitation to extremism and possibly violence. We have seen, many times, how the far-right fringe, now increasingly the conservative mainstream, responds when incited like this, and it can get ugly. Those like Fleming who push this sort of propaganda are largely responsible for it -- and must be held accountable.

6) John Fleming is an idiot. And, clearly, a worthy CRD.

For Catholics, women priests are akin to child molesters

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Just in case you needed another reason to detest the Roman Catholic Church:

The Vatican today made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes under church law, putting it in the same category as clerical sex abuse of minors, heresy and schism.

The new rules, which have been sent to bishops around the world, apply equally to Catholic women who agree to a ceremony of ordination and to the bishop who conducts it. Both would be excommunicated. Since the Vatican does not accept that women can become priests, it does not recognise the outcome of any such ceremony.

With all due respect to you Catholics out there, perhaps the Church you place as the intermediary between you and your God, the Church to which you confess your "sins," the Church that you allow to govern so many aspects of your lives, could do with some perspective, don't you think?

Then again, this is a Church that did its best to cover up the sexual abuse that was rampant in its ranks, a Church with a long and bloody history at the center of a bigoted and bloodthirsty religion, a Church that has long oppressed women (and so many others), so I'm not sure perspective of the kind we expect in civilized, liberal society is likely.

Onward Christian financiers

By Distributorcap

When the clock flipped into the year 2000, America was enjoying true prosperity. The economy was humming, the budget was balanced, the internet was hot as dot-com stocks were flying, and real estate was beginning its rise into the stratosphere. In fact, the biggest fear was that the entire computing structure of the US would go haywire as internal clocks in the CPUs and software would not be able to handle the change in the century digit. By the time 2001 rolled around, the dot-com stocks had collapsed and George Bush had been installed as Chief Defender of the Faith of Idiocy.

But the real estate market kept flying. During that year, Integrity Bank, opened their doors in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta. The bank's philosophy (which in hindsight would blend nicely with the coming decade of Bush dogma) would be to transact business based on Christian principles and make a lot of money at the same time. The bank's charter and philosophy took the motto on American money “In God We Trust” literally. The bank gave customers free Bibles, and employees prayed together at meetings. Investors included Georgia politicians and the former CNN host Lou Dobbs.

The bank’s founder, Steven M. Skow, a Lutheran, said he would give away 10 percent of annual profits to churches and faith-based charities. In 2007, Mr. Skow donated $1.7 million. Mr. Skow said he would not discriminate against non-Christians. “We weren’t selling religion,” he said. “We just managed the bank on godly principles, like the golden rule.”

The gold sure ruled until their Golden Calf god turned out to be made of iron pyrite.

In August 2008, government regulators in Georgia shut down Integrity Bank just as the economy began to collapse in a sea of red ink and bad mortgages. Integrity bank was initially seen as just another failed lender that had fallen victim to the hard times of easy lending and overvalued the real estate. After all, these were good Christians who made some bad decisions.

When it was put into receivership on August 29th, 2008, Integrity had assets of $1.1 billion and deposits of $974. What was left on the balance sheet was sold to Regions Bank of Alabama. The failed Christian bank's five offices re-opened on Sept. 2 as branches of Regions. The FDIC estimated the bank lost up to $350 million on those $1.1 billion in assets, putting the red ink at a stunning 32%, one of the highest loss percentages in the last 40 years.

Onward Christian financiers.

On Friday, May 8, a federal indictment was unsealed. It accused two former vice presidents at the bank of hastening its downfall by selling fraudulent loans to a hotel developer in exchange for bribes.

From the The New York Times:

The two executives, Douglas Ballard and Joseph Todd Foster, were charged with conspiracy, insider trading and bank fraud, according to the indictment. Mr. Ballard was also charged with bribery. The developer, Guy Mitchell, who received $80 million in loans, was charged with conspiracy and bribery.

But in announcing the indictment, the United States attorney Sally Quillian Yates said Mr. Ballard and Mr. Foster had not lived up to the bank’s name or mission. “A number of banks have suffered from the plummeting real estate market, but this bank was robbed from the inside,” she said. 

To say the least.

Good Christian Mitchell pled not guilty at a federal courthouse in Atlanta. Good Christians - Ballard and Foster - have yet to turn themselves in and will probably be arraigned within a few days.

The soldiers for the good Christians were deployed quickly to defend these pious and moral citizens. Edward Garland, Mitchell's attorney said his client had been a law-abiding, profitable customer for the bank. “The collapse of the economy caused the bank failure, not his activity,” Mr. Garland said.

The indictment states Mitchell received the $80 million in loans from Integrity from 2004 to 2006. The holdings in the Mitchell portfolio include the upscale Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa in Sausalito, Calif., and the Royal Palm Hotel near Miami. The indictment goes on the state that he obtained the money under false pretenses and deposited nearly $20 million in a personal checking account. From this account his bought some very religious inspired items, like a private island in the Bahamas for $1.5 million.

The indictment also charges that Mitchell made few, if any, payments on the loans. Instead, it says, he took additional loans, and his debt ballooned. In return for lenient terms on the loan, Mitchell paid Ballard more than $230,000 in bribes. It also accuses the two good Christian bank executives of engaging in insider trading when they sold off their Integrity stock as the bank began to wallow in a sea of debt.

“After passing out $80 million to the developer like it was Monopoly money, both officers dumped their Integrity stock before the failed loans came to light,” Ms. Yates said. 

"We expect to show that he is completely innocent." stated defense lawyer Garland of Mitchell. He said "Mr. Mitchell was in compliance with banking regulations and merely used a central bank account for both personal and business expenses.” These words are right out of the most holy biblical text - the book of Hypocrisy.

Before the collapse of the bank, Integrity had launched its own internal investigation of the loans to Mitchell, since they were such a large part of the portfolio. The probe found that some of Integrity's good Christian, Bible-thumping executives lent more and more money to Mitchell, in order to boost their own collection plate. "By continuing to loan Mr. Mitchell money, large loan fees were generated for commissions to the loan officers, as well as loan dollar volume goals to justify larger year-end bonuses for executive management," the directors concluded in January 2008, according to minutes from a board meeting that were filed in the bankruptcy.

By the time the bank collapsed in 2008, Mitchell had several different loans from Integrity that added up to $83 million, or 127% of the bank's total capital of $65.3 million, according to court and regulatory filings. The loans were secured by the hotel, shopping centers, his home in Florida and co-signed by Jesus himself.

However, good Christian Mitchell had a sweetheart clause in his loans. Unlike almost any other borrower, Mitchell wasn't required to make payments on the loans out of his own pocket. Instead, each loan had interest reserves, or money set aside to cover payments until the projects started generating their own cash. In other words the loan was being paid back with money from the loan. Regulators have criticized the use of interest reserves as a payment mechanism, claiming its makes it difficult to detect troubled loans.

Founder Steven Skow, who left the bank in 2007, was not implicated in the indictment. He claimed he was a good Christian (and good Sergeant Schultz) and knew nothing about the activities in the indictment. He said he had lost $22 million in stock when the bank failed.

I guess this is a true test of faith for Mr. Skow, 22 million faiths in all.

By the way, the faith-based state of Georgia leads the nation in bank failures, with 38 banks having closed since 2007, according to the FDIC. Georgia has one of the nation's most underregulated banking system.

(Cross-posted from Distributorcap NY.)

Graham crackers

By Capt. Fogg

Life is strange. Franklin Graham got himself into trouble by bragging about how moral we Christian Americans are as opposed to "these other countries":

You can't beat your wife, you cannot murder your children if you think they've committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.

Of course, there's some truth to it. Such practices do go on, but that they don't go on too often in the US, is hard for me to attribute to the ennobling influence of fundamentalist fire-and-brimstone Christianity of the Franklin sort. You've seen the statistics about the so-called Bible Belt, and I think they show that such crimes are bred by ignorance and poverty and alcohol, not by Sunday Sermons. I would challenge anyone to show that atheists, for instance, are more likely to murder their daughters -- or anyone for that matter.

Nonetheless, Franklin missed the opportunity to teach about the brotherhood of man and our universal failings and frailties as well, and chose instead the traditional tribal posture of moral superiority in an attempt to rally the Christian faithful by riling the Muslim faithful. He also missed the opportunity to speak at the Pentagon on the National Day of Prayer -- when the Bill of Rights goes into hiding and we pretend we're back in George II's Merry Old Christian England, being told when, how, and to whom to pray -- just like old Tom Jefferson wanted.

Some might find that puzzling since Billy Graham, famous for agreeing in a taped conversation with Richard Nixon about how "the Jews" were ruining the country, that "the Jews" had a stranglehold on the American media, seems still to be in favor amongst presidents needing to show how Christian they are, including Mr. Obama and the randy Mr. Clinton. The Elder Graham did of course do a great deal of grovelling and talking about his record of not trying to convert Jews and being a friend of Israel, and it seems to have worked. I'd have to take exception to the former claim, however, since I've met him and still have vivid memories of one of his associates pummeling me on the chest and insisting most sincerely that what I felt was Jesus trying to enter my heart. I'm not sure either that his "friendship" with Israel means anything but a thirst for the actualization of ancient political propaganda and I'm not sure he doesn't approve of the kind of theocratic Israeli politics I despise.

Anyway, this is the USA, where things are felt first and rationalized later, and Billy is still one of the most admired men in the country, and Mr. Obama apparently seems to feel the need to be seen praying with the wealthy country gentleman. Maybe they make needles with camel-size eyes these days.

Perhaps that need is real since the viral, Republican generated e-mail hoax insisting that he's canceled the National Day of Prayer has achieved orbital velocity and doesn't seem to be slowing down even after colliding with the facts. We can't forget just how many Republicans and takers of tea insist he's a Muslim fundamentalist. I guess he needs to be seen on his knees with the right someone, grovelling to no one and not bending over too far to shake hands with non-Christian foreign dignitaries half his height. Frankly, Mr. Franklin, I hate to see a president on his knees for any reason.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

An affront to humanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Those who know me, even just through this blog, know what I think of organized religion, and of Christianity in particular.

Well, let me be blunt.

If, as Glenn Beck suggested, taking the baton from Rep. Steve King, one of the more extremist Republicans on Capitol Hill, voting for health-care reform on a Sunday, perhaps this Sunday, is "an affront to God," then Beck's "God" can shove it.

Because it would mean that his "God" thinks that millions and millions of Americans, those who have inadequate coverage or no coverage at all, those living in poverty or struggling with debt, unable to pay their bills and put food on the table and take care of their children, should be excluded from America's unfair and unjust health-care system.

"They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God," said King. Please. First, there's the separation of Church and State. I know conservatives don't believe in it, but it underpins American politics. Second, this isn't about Christianity, just as America isn't about Christianity. And third, the deists who founded the United States way back when might have a thing or two to say to King and Beck about what is and what isn't in the public interest. The theocrats of the right may object, but they, to me, are among the most un-American of Americans.

If you want an affront to humanity, look no further than Glenn Beck himself, or the likes of Steve King, hardly alone in the GOP. But the real affront to humanity is America's health-care system, and while reform wouldn't fix all the problems -- the Senate bill, with "patches," is flawed and doesn't go far enough but is not only much better than nothing but a significant historical achievement -- it would go a long way toward making it far more fair and far more just than it is now, with power taken away from the interests of profit and given to those who at present have no liberty at all in a system that either denies them coverage, and care, or subjects them to the bottom line of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, providing them with inadequate coverage and care at exorbitant prices. It's liberty, of a kind, but only in some right-wing Hobbesian state of nature, where life is nasty, brutish, and short, and massively profitable for those in a position to oppress the rest.

How is any of that "Christian"?