This short film by Max Blumenthal was shot at the recent Value Voters Summit. (Just scroll down a little and activate.) It sounds like a supermarket promotion but, in fact, it was the religious right making it known to the Republican presidential candidates that they expect major payback after supporting George Bush for almost seven long years, and, from their point of view, getting very little for it. You really have to sympathize with these good folk. They expected to be a handed a theocracy and they didn’t get it. Roe v Wade wasn't overturned. Not a single heretic has been incinerated, and atheists and homosexuals have not been rounded up and “quarantined.” This film has already appeared on Huffpo. I don’t know how much Arianna’s Wal-Blog overlaps with Doc 40, but I’m running it anyway just to remind us all that those people are out there and they don’t like us.
The secret word is Burning
The secret word is Burning
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6 comments:
You nailed it Mick, pointing out these people haven't gotten what they wanted/expected. And they're not likely to either.
They've been used as a power base and the issues of abortion, gay marriage, etc. are only useful as long as they remain unresolved issues that can inflame these narrowminded voters over and over, distracting them from the realization that the corporate occupation is fucking them over, same as the rest of us.
Still works like a charm... divide and conquer.
Seriously wacky shit, mi amigo.
If you ever need a good read, check out "The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church" by Rev. Gregory A. Boyd. If only the rest of Jesus' Fan Club were as wise as this gentleman...
yes, but, at least in the case of attacking abortion rights, the issue may remain unresolved -- in the sense that roe isn't overturned -- but long ago the anti-choice camp took the tack that roe can't be overturned so they will go at it a different way. the results have actually done considerable damage without an outright ban. just for starters, it's difficult to impossible to obtain an abortion in many states, due to the lack of clinics and all the stupid restrictions and bullshit counseling laws.
perhaps more insidious in terms of the "hearts and minds" portion of the attack, i've recently read columns by pious dickheads hang-wringing about abortion, and never ONCE even mentioning the woman or that pregnancy is something that happens to women. women are so unimportant in this process now that they don't even bear acknowledging. b/c now it is all about the "bay-beez" and not the woman's right to control her own body. this paradigm shift is deliberate -- it comes straight out of anti-choice rhetoric -- and has arguably done the most damage, taking the argument out of the realm of women's rights and into the realm of so-called fetal rights. the baby trumps all; the woman isn't even mentioned. (these columns, btw, were in the l.a. times and not some far-right rag.) it reminds me of a carol lay cartoon from years ago where she tells a tale of a woman who is caught while seeking to obtain an illegal abortion, is locked up till she has the baby, and then executed after it's born.
more could be said on this, but i don't wanna tie up the comments too long. i am almost certain there's been damage in increments done to the other areas mick mentioned, but i'm not as clear on that.
i do recall a recent story in the LAT about a woman who is going around to small towns in california, urging them to put a sign saying "in god we trust" up in the city council chambers. she has had great success in achieving this. one of the quotes from a supporter in one town basically said that putting up the sign showed a positive, patriotic attitude and that the only people who would be bothered are atheists, "so really nobody has a problem with it" (paraphrase). b/c atheists aren't people. and the palestinians do not exist.
Some girl,
I agree with everything you say -- there HAS "been damage in increments" in all the areas the religious right pushes, plenty of it. I didn't mean to imply because the issues are deliberately kept unresolved that there's been no damage. Just the opposite. The wounds are purposely kept open and what you've detailed is the result.
My point was that keeping the right stirred up and working their mischief in these areas prevents them seeing they have much more in common with the opposition than with the plutocracy running the show. It keeps the struggle divided along the wrong lines.
Most of the right are economic slaves being raped by the corporate occupation just like the rest of america, but they side with the elitist plutocrats that are screwing them because those in power "support" these issues -- issues I don't think the administration gives a fuck about really. They're just useful in keeping people divided and unaware of the real lines the struggle needs to be played out on.
dear kass: i agree with you too and did not mean to imply otherwise. i guess i should've said "yes, and..." rather than "yes, but..." or taken a minute to better articulate my agreement with everything you said (in both comments).
i was just thinking about all the ways in which the opportunistic stirring-up of "moral values" rhetoric has done so much damage -- something i guess we all know. so the religious right is getting what it wants in some ways. but it's a black-and-white movement, and nothing less than total victory is the only acceptable goal. they're like cylons: they'll never stop and they'll never give up. and that means a lot of collateral damage along the way.
but i guess i do struggle with having compassion for those people who, through ignorance or malice or just plain delusion, do so much damage to everyone, including themselves, by supporting the b.s. and being mouthpieces in their own worlds. they are just as oppressed as we are, as you say, but are more willing mind slaves. i think i feel some contempt for that, like they had a choice and decided not to see what's right in front of them. i think they buy into the idea that they could someday be one of "them" (the powerful, the privileged, or just the rich), and so they'd better support whatever it is that the powerful support. (and also they of course DO care about these issues that said powerful pay lip service to...but, again, that's where i really start to hate them for not seeing the "other" -- women, gays, etc -- as human too.) it completely obscures the reality of their own situation. it's hard to care about their plight b/c, as mick says, they do hate us. imagine what that hatred could do if it were focused on the right place.
ok, uh...that's probably not compassionate, either, but i just mean you're right. this crap put out by bush et al. keeps us divided in the wrong ways.
sorry to go on, but it's important, no?
Damn straight it's important.
And what you say about their buying into the now bankrupt american dream (as if it's still viable), that it "completely obscures the reality of their own situation" seems key. It's got me seeing that basically the plutocracy stands by and lets the right screw itself even as it does their dirty work for them, to say nothing of the collateral damage that makes it hard not to hate them just as much as they hate us. And that deepens the division.
Sure makes it clear how the anger and fear is orchestrated, or if not orchestrated than milked for all its worth. Nah... it's orchestrated, when you think how intensely the fear has been hyped and the hatred enflamed.
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