Molly Ivins speaks

[serryjw]

quote........

I was interested to find that the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that the senator either supports the torture bill or he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote. I'd like to see an evangelical vote on that one. I don't know how Sheldon defines traditional values, but deliberately inflicting terrible physical pain or stress on someone who is completely helpless strikes me as ... well, torture. And, um, wrong. And I've smoked dope! Boy, everything those conservatives tell us about the terrible moral values of us liberals must be true after all.
End quote....

So what we are saying is we as a country have no moral compass...It really is all about politics
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/27271.html

[texpatriot2004]

1. Well said Molly Ivins nm

[HereSince1628]

2. The christianists are into pain. Do unto others ...don't ya know.

I swear, I am lost in some delirium, when will this trip end?

[serryjw]

6. In the 60's hallucinogenic drugs

gave you one hell of a trip..now we are one worldwide collective trip...I wish I knew when this will end...Will there be a savior?

[MikeH]

3. Very consistent with the kind of God they believe in

I was interested to find that the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition is so in favor of torture he told McCain that the senator either supports the torture bill or he can forget about the evangelical Christian vote.

I don't know how Sheldon defines traditional values, but deliberately inflicting terrible physical pain or stress on someone who is completely helpless strikes me as ... well, torture.

Remember Sheldon et. al. believe in a God who tortures people for all eternity who don't subscribe to their religion.

[malaise]

4. Why is Molly shocked

These same people used the bible to support the slaughter of indigenous Americans, slavery and lynching.

[Jcrowley]

5. It is important to understand Rev. Shelton and what he speaks of

He is straightforward. You need not wonder who or what he is. Understand that he has a megaphone for a reason.



Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt

By Umberto Eco

Writing in New York Review of Books, 22 June 1995, pp.12-15. Excerpted in Utne Reader, November-December 1995, pp. 57-59.

1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition.

Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but is was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a revelation received at the dawn of human history. This revelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia.

This new culture had to be syncretistic. Syncretism is not only, as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice;" such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth.

As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.

If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.

2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.

Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

More:
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

[midnight]

7. What the hell are traditional values. Reenacting the

Crucifixion? So if this was good enough for Christ it is good enough for our enemies?