While Americans slog their way through economic disaster, they are being heavily courted by fundamentalism at an alarming rate. Fearful of losing their homes, their jobs, their future, people are desperate and the Religious Reich is taking full advantage of citizen’s fears by declaring that the answer to all their woes can be found in the immorality of biblical hodge podge. The GOP, married to fundamentalism and sleeping around with corporate America, has all the signs and symptoms of the venereal disease called fascism. In his book “American Fascists – The Christian Right and the War On America”, Chris Hedges lays out an extremely compelling case of fascist thuggery by the Religious Reich, and their deep-seated desire to destroy democracy and establish a theocratic fascist government under the banner of their version of a christian skydaddy.
I’ve been reading the book of late. And, I am thoroughly amazed at the remarkable insight that Hedges, a christian apologist, has when it comes to the destructive nature of christian fundamentalism. Few moderate/apologist christians have the courage to call a spade a spade when it comes to christian fanaticism, but Hedges makes his views crystal clear. America is moving toward theocratic fascism, and doing so at an alarming pace. My interest in this is abundantly clear. Freedom of religion and from religion are paramount to the survival of our democratic republic. This is the reason I speak out. But, it is in anyone’s best interest, anyone who doesn’t believe in a skydaddy, or doesn’t believe in a skydaddy that fits the supernatural puke of the fundamentalist version/interpretation, to heed Hedges’ warning.
A paragraph that really captured my attention comes from the chapter “Apocalyptic Violence” p.198…
“The New York Times in 1944 asked Vice President Henry Wallace to answer the questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they? The Vice President’s answers were published on April 9, 1944, as the war against the Axis powers and Japan was drawing to a close. He wrote:
“The really dangerous American fascist… is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money and more power.
They claim to be superpatriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjugation.”“
The GOP (or as I un-affectionately call them the “CNP” for christian nationalist party) platform and mantra for the past 20 years fits nicely into Vice President Henry Wallace’s description of a fascist from 1944. Don’t you think? Attacks on labor unions, progressives, gays, women’s reproductive rights, science… Blatant bigotry, racism, calls for the dismantling of the Wall of Separation, or simply denying it exists… And, more importantly, playing upon fear of economic collapse while obstructing the democratic process of solving the country’s economic problems by refusing political compromise. And what of the lies? Literally thousands upon thousands of lies, manufactured to specific potency for a poison delivered through news. The table for American fascism has been set, I’m afraid. And, those who are about to sit down at the dinner table, the American people, are unabashedly ignorant of the poison they’ve already consumed, and the final solution being prepared for them in the holy religious kitchen of the fascist GOP.
