I can't find an article to Chris Hedges article in Hapers for this moth, but it's a very important article: "feeling the hate of the Religious Right." So here's a link to an article about the article.
http://www.liquidlist.com/archives/2005/05/politics_louis.html
I Just saw Hedged talking about this on "Democracy Now" On Free Speech TV. It's a terrible thing to wake up and released I've had my head in the sand. I've known for a long time what the religious right is about, but have paid less and less attention on the assumption that; (1) I can't do anything about it; (2) Americans love to sin and even if the RR establishes theocracy it wont last long.
That later point might have a point to it. But I think we should all be aware of the religious right's agenda. I also want my non Christian friends to be aware of the fact that a minority of hip Christians have always tumbled to the agenda of the Christian fascists, and we are not pleased or amassed. I now see that minority growing. That in itself gives me a bit of hope.
The alarming problem is that most Christians, most Evangelicals are just not willing to listen. 90% are good people who want to please God and have no political savvy so they have no idea what is being said by these people. But the religious right's agenda is to marginalize everyone not a member of their movement. Hedges traces the roots of that movent from the modern Falwell and so on to the segregation's of the 60s to the Ku Klux Klan.
It's in the latest issue of Harpers, we should all read it.
The article has been cited on many other blogs but (quite sensibly) Harpers doesn't post material from issues currently available on the newstands on the internet. Have you read the actual article?
ReplyDeleteAlso what is Freedom TV and Democracy Now?
i have not read the actual thing, but saw the author talking about it. Democracy now is a program on Free Speech tv. FSTV is a chanel on cable. AT least on Dish network.
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ReplyDeleteI hit publish rather than preview and couldn't edit, so ignore the deleted comment above. Here is a nutshell overview of the "religious right":
ReplyDeleteBasically, it is the connection of (American) conservative politics and Christianity, as you might expect. It is associated with the inneranist/literalist forms of Biblical exegesis including YEC, an eschatology in which Christ will have a literal battle with Satan and his minions after a period of Tribulation under the anti-Christ (see the "Left Behind" series of books and movies), and a model of grace which is generally interpreted in exclusivistic terms of how salvation operates (do this, say that, and you will feel this, experience that).
On the political side, the secularists and their allies, the feminists, the homosexuals, Hollywood Jews, the more progressive Christians (as well as Unitarian Univeralists, Buddhists, etc.), the environmentalists, and a few others are the opposition. Despite the fact that both in sheer numbers and current political representation mainstream to conservative Christians are a clear majority in the US, the religious right prefers to paint every issue as a persecution of "faith" (i.e. their faith).
Hot button issues: opposing the false and evil teaching of evolution, opposing the false and evil practice of any form of abortion, opposing the false and evil practice of teaching children anything other than abstinence for birth control, opposing the false and evil teaching that...well, you get the idea.
It isn't that agreeing with one or two of these positions makes you a member of the religious right, but the aforementioned description covers the basic common theme of the ideology uniting people under that banner. Examples of high-profile advocates of such an ideology include Dr. James Dobson (director of Focus On The Family), Dr. Kent Hovind ("Dr. Dino"), and Rev. Jerry Falwell.