The Avignon Presidency

[arendt]

The Avignon Presidency
by arendt

"There is a sense of fatalism about life in the later Middle Ages. People knew that Christendom was sick; they knew that the ideas of the Gospel of Love were far removed from prevailing reality; but they had little idea of how to cure it...The world was ruled by brigandage, superstition, and the plague."

- "Europe - A History"
....Norman Davies

"Throughout the fourteenth century, the Church suffered political humiliation and moral decay...(it was) degenerating into a vested interest absorbed in self-perpetuation and finance. (the French king) Philip IV secured the election of a Frenchman to the papacy, and persuaded him to move the Holy See to Avignon on the Rhone. For 68 years the popes were so clearly pawns and prisoners of France that other nations gave them a rapidly diminishing reverence and revenue. The harassed pontiffs replenished their treasury by multiple levies upon the hierarchy, the monasteries, and the parishes...Every judgment or favor obtained from the (papal) Curia expected a gift in acknowledgment, and the judgment was sometimes dictated by the gift."

- "The Story of Civilization: Part VI "The Reformation"
....Will Durant

It is the consensus of historians that the Avignon Papacy was "the nadir of the Church". The most common analogy used by historians to describe this period is that of a "Babylonian Captivity" of the Church. (The "persuasion" in the quote above refers to the kidnapping of Pope Boniface VIII by agents of Philip IV, and his subsequent untimely death.) This captivity lasted for almost seventy years (1308-77), followed by forty more years (1378-1418) of papal schism, and ended with the spectacle of three popes - all excommunicating each other and being excommunicated by a disgusted Council of Constance. The middle of this century, which the Church would rather forget, was marked by the Black Death (1348-9). One hundred years later, Martin Luther brought the whole rotten edifice down with the truth.

Today, America has embarked on a similar captivity, plumbing the depths of corruption and internecine warfare.

Ever since the ascendancy of the Extreme Right in America (which I date around the time that the Iran-Contra investigation ended in a whitewash and some pardons, and the amoral, clandestine operative, Oliver North, became lionized as a paragon of virtue), historically-aware people have recognized that politics in America is no longer healthy. Honest debate about issues has been driven out by witch hunts, character assassination, and fear-mongering. Media buys are more important than any kind of campaign content. And national politics has become a continuous campaign that can only be afforded by selling your political soul to the host of corporate bagmen who have fastened on Washington.

The captivity of the American Republic began with the "Brooks Brothers Riot" of 2000, in which senior Republican Congressional aides illegally "persuaded" the Florida vote counting to stop and bought time for the judicial coup d'etat that appointed the corporations' hand-picked man, Bush. (The aides, agents of the GOP leadership, were never even reprimanded, much less prosecuted.) The move to an American Avignon was completed by the purges of 2002, engineered by crooked voting machines and the campaign of lies and intimidation leading up to the illegal war in Iraq. The so-called election of 2002 delivered total corporate dominance to the GOP, in effect moving the American government to a site of corporate "extra-territoriality" - just as Avignon was a disputed piece of land, fought over by Italian cities. The lack of mainstream protest of the demonstrably rigged voting machines and deliberate understaffing of polling sites in Democratic districts in Ohio in 2004 demonstrates the total control of the corporate press and its placemen in the government, including John Kerry.

In the same way that the Avignon papacy acted for the complete benefit of the French king and the French hierarchy, bleeding money from other European Christians to do so, the corporate GOP acts solely for the benefit of corporations and those parts of the US most amenable to their union-busting, government-slashing, police-state agenda, sucking money out of blue states and non-military programs at a fantastic and unsustainable rate.

In the Dark Ages, the Papacy had focused on tending to the needs of an impoverished and benighted peasantry. This was a genuinely Christian goal, if one can overlook that the Church's otherworldly focus contributed heavily to that darkness. But, by the high Middle Ages of the Avignon Era, the Church was nothing but a tithing parasite on the back of Christian Europe. As the introductory quotes indicated, everything spiritual and temporal was for sale in Avignon.

In BBE (Before Bush Era) America, we lived in the Republic designed by Jefferson and Franklin, explained by Madison and Paine, and first governed by Washington and Adams. If there is any "original intent" to be found in the American government, it is to be found in the writings of these people. (Of course, now that Sam Elito has invented the "unitary executive", i.e., king, the "original intent" sophistry of the Federalist Society - another Orwellian "Clean Skies" name that dishonors the memory of the authors of the Federalist Papers - is exposed for the cynical posturing it always was.)

For the historically-challenged, all of these Founding Fathers were Deists and Freemasons. In its day, the Masons had been excommunicated and subjected to the Inquisition by the Catholics and were looked upon with suspicion by hereditary monarchs everywhere. Masonry was the gathering place for those who brought the Enlightenment to political power, and America was the Enlightenment's grandest political success.

Our founders were the living embodiment of the Enlightenment. George Washington took the oath of office in full Masonic regalia. In 1796, Congress wrote and Adams approved a treaty that explicitly stated "the United States is not a Christian nation". Tom Paine was a screaming atheist who held a seat in the French Revolutionary Chamber of Deputies. And for 200 years, America lived by Enlightenment principles: separation of Church and State, separation of powers, freedom of speech, open government, and public education.

But then, we come to the Bush Era (BE), the American Avignon, our Babylonian Captivity (both figurative, and literal). The anti-democratic power of corporations and billionaires has finally bought out all four estates of government, especially the fourth (the press); and it is open season for corruption on a scale not seen in America for over a century. However, it is more than mere financial shenanigans; it is a concerted campaign to overthrow the Constitution and to loot the pesky, enlightened American Middle Class out of existence so that aristocracy can remount its stinking thrown atop a mountain of human misery.

The Constitution is under assault in all three branches of government. Bush claims to be above the law, a unitary executive. Honest judges, even Republican conservatives appointed by Bush, are labeled "activist" and attacked if any ruling disagrees with what the GOP wants. And, both houses of Congress's rules are being pulverized. The House gives the minority ten minutes to read a bill before voting, then it holds votes open for hours to twist arms. The Senate threatens the Nuclear Option for invoking a filibuster, in spite of many GOP filibusters in the past. Like the Geneva Convention, the "loyal opposition" is a quaint notion; and Democrats are baited like bears and hunted like heretics. Beyond Washington, corrupt, secret, electronic voting technology, controlled by rabid fundamentalists allied with the GOP, is rammed down our throats despite public demonstrations of its easy vulnerability.

The saddest thing to watch is the few honest politicians left in Washington being constantly screwed over because they still believe in the faith of our Founders. They play politics by the old polite rules, and they get slaughtered, time after time. But they refuse to call the game crooked. They let Grover Norquist excommunicate them when any honest politician with guts could nail 950 theses to the door of Congress and excommunicate the entire establishment of both parties.

America needs to go straight from Jesus to Martin Luther, or rather from Thomas Jefferson to our yet-unfound Enlightenment political reformer. We cannot afford to stop for a hundred years, in a corrupt, religious police state, with thought crimes, witch hunts, Inquisitions, and rampant superstition and disease. Only five years into the Avignon Presidency, the rest of the civilized world is washing their hands of us. Essentially, they have long since metaphorically become Enlightenment Protestants. The whole industrialized world had its Thirty Years War a half century ago; and they learned how absolutely destructive religious/ideological warfare is. They refuse to go back into that hell. Only equally rabid and equally un-teachable Islamic and Jewish fundamentalists will head for Armageddon with Bush.

America was a leader in the world war against ideology; but we seem to have caught the infection ourselves - re-grooved ex-Trotskyites (Kristol, et al) and "old school tie" legacy aristos from the CIA being the vectors of infection. Today, led by a Christo-fascist death cult prepared for nuclear war, we are the only advanced country on earth about to deliberately plunge into the Dark Ages again. Our competitors and enemies would love to see it happen, so long as we don't take anyone down with us. They are more than happy to let our neo-plantation-owners move our industrial base to their countries. It will be trivial for Asian and European leadership, with thousands of years of political sophistication to draw on, to buy these looters off and silently steal their political power.

In closing, its still impossible to top Santayana: "Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it." Its crunch time for the middle class in America. Use what political power you have left. Stop Elito. Impeach Bush. If you are a libertarian or a Naderite, wake up, you useful idiot! If you don't, the new Inquisition/Fatherland Security will be visiting you real soon, and impounding your bank account to pay for it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Excellent analogy

I enjoyed being reminded of European history and how it is related to what is happening today. Kicked and nominated.

[arendt]

3. Bless you, sir or madam, for finding history candy instead of medicine n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Madam

I always wished I had had the means to go to university and become a history professor instead of an elementary teacher, but the only scholarship available was for the latter and not the former.

[arendt]

7. Any liberal still teachng in America is a boddhisatva in my book...

it would be so easy to just give up. May the deity/non-deity of your choice
bless/not bless you.

arendt

[ninkasi]

34. In 1960, when I was 17

I discovered Will and Ariel Durant, and their wonderful books, especially the series,The Story of Civilization. I devoured the books, because nothing I had learned in high school had prepared me for real history. It was wonderful, and although I came to see why society had a stake in not teaching history as it was actually lived, I believe that a more honest approach would cause more students to become interested in history.
Who could not love history as recounted by somebody like Durant, who pointed out that Henry II of England's rebellious wife signed letters as "Eleanor of Aquitaine, by the wrath of God, Queen of England"?

[applegrove]

10. I agree. Good one! n/t

[Karenina]

50. YUP!

:thumbsup:

[EVDebs]

17. The Babylonian Captivity of the US Presidency !

Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power
US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy

George Monbiot
Tuesday April 20, 2004
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1195568,...

The article contains one erroneous point:

""In the United States, several million people have succumbed to an extraordinary delusion. In the 19th century, two immigrant preachers cobbled together a series of unrelated passages from the Bible to create what appears to be a consistent narrative: Jesus will return to Earth when certain preconditions have been met. The first of these was the establishment of a state of Israel. The next involves Israel's occupation of the rest of its "biblical lands" (most of the Middle East), and the rebuilding of the Third Temple on the site now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques. The legions of the antichrist will then be deployed against Israel, and their war will lead to a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. The Jews will either burn or convert to Christianity, and the Messiah will return to Earth. ""

Actually the dispensationalist view of end-times, also called 'futurism', was invented in the Counter-Reformation by the Jesuits, not simply a couple of 'immigrant preachers' as Monbiot mentions, see Francisco Ribera's role in this from:

The Catholic Origins of Futurism and Preterism
www.aloha.net/~mikesch/antichrist.htm

The Third Temple stuff is very much a part of the Bush foreign policy game plan, and a reason why the Muslim world automatically reacts negatively to the US; the 'greater Israel' policies are mentioned consistently, and erroneously applied Biblically since Abraham's progeny includes the sons of Ishmail too,

Greater Israel 'from the Nile to the Euphrates'
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/gre...

This in reference to TheGreatArchitectoftheUniverse's promise to Abram Genesis 15:18

"In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: (KJV)"

The misapplication of all of this scriptural eschatology is very disturbing. But the Jesuit connection from the 16th Century is verifiable, as are the progeny of Abram being BOTH the Jews and the Arabs.

[arendt]

23. Most useful info. Thanks. Must digest before commenting. n/t

[tocqueville]

30. check your sources

It is very possible that there are links between the rapture eschatology and some jesuitic intrepretations back in time. But the author of the article writes about it to defend his fundie principles against the Catholics.
Scheifler's page is not about history, it's about painting the Catholic church as the spawn of de devil.

http://www.biblelight.net/

A guy that marks "Catholic" with a blinking "666" is probably to be put in the same category than the average fundie. What I understand the guy is a seven day adventist...

my point is that protestants AND catholics both share the SAME responsability for what happened to the US today.

I don't care who did the most, when or where, both have fought and are still fighting to make their world view the dominant one. And that's where the problem is, in case they access to political power.

They have pretty much lost the fight in Europe, specially in France, Italy and Spain. And regarding the Nordic countries and the UK, Germany it's pretty much the same. If they start preaching that contraception and abortion are a sin, they are ridiculed and hardly quoted in the media. If they bash gays, a trial is awaiting. If they say that some politician "ought to be taken out" (which they don't), they go to jail. So they mostly STFU and deal with charity, perform some marriage and burial rituals and make appeals for the world's peace. Since they wear robes it's a bit like a Miss America pageant. Besides the Xmas midnight mass is a colorful show which is part of the tradition, but it doesn't go very much beyond that and is very good for turism.

They are not a real political force any longer, because people might think that Jesus was cool, but don't want to be taught who to copulate with and how or what to eat on Fridays.

It doesn't mean that people don't have a spirituality, and wonder about if there is a God or not, or even pray.
But religion is a private affair, not a national. The religious fervour that embraced the US after 9/11 was seen
here as understandable but rather exotic...

I digressed, but my point still is that Protestantism hasn't historically done much more good than Catholicism.
The later is recessing today and tries to adapt to Protestantism's worse children, not to lose terrain against the protestantic fundies. This strategy which is a departure from the liberalisation during the 60s, is doomed to fail. And will probably lead to a schism and the birth of some liberal cathomicism. Wait after Benedict...

[EVDebs]

43. Check who's in power now. Fundies control it all. SMOM /KOM

http://www.smom.org/maltatoday.htm

I believe the SMOM also has a seat at the UN, if I'm not mistaken, and can issue passports. That kind of power, as Monbiot's Guardian article mentioned in my post above reiterates, is precisely what YOU just spoke out about:

"...And that's where the problem is, in case they access to political power."

So right now it looks like a secret society of SMOM, Knights of Malta, are weilding the ugly stick and beating the world with it at will.

(BTW, I know NSA's former head Gen Michael Hayden is a Catholic, I'd be surprised to find if he has SMOM/KOM membership...well, not really.)

[Hardrada]

2. A fascinating analysis. I've got to reread this.

[tocqueville]

4. "Martin Luther" is far from being the solution

even if his criticism of the Catholic Church has its merits, it was replaced by absolute obedience to the Princes and Bible fundamentalism. It's a bad analogy. No, what the US needs is a new Enlightment era. It's probably will happen anyway after the Bush's era of devastation. Let's hope that the later won't lead to Armaggedon...

[arendt]

6. Please, don't mis-parse the analogy

I only use Luther for his being a "reformer".

I thought I made it perfectly clear that we need to get back to the Enlightenment,
not to aristocracy and fundamentalism.

I want to see the features of our government restored, not replaced.

Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Its impossible to make historical
analogies without dragging in religious figures and religions. The only historical states
without religion were ideological states; and they were, of course, secular religions.

arendt

[tocqueville]

9. I had some doubts about the wording of some phrases...

in for the rest excellent analogy. One of Urban the V residences is just round the corner where I live...

What worries me is that the religious aspect of modern America is for historical reasons very deeply entrenched to the difference from most European countries, maybe with exception of Poland and Ireland...

it's going to be a "heck of a job" to go back to Jefferson and Paine, unless there is a severe crisis resulting in a catharsis where the heads of the fundies are cut (in a virtual manner). This demand DEEP changes and frankly I don't see today anybody in the US (at least in the potential President candidates) able to deal with it.

The changes you ask for can only result from profound, transcendental changes in society. Historically those are mostly caused by wars, civil wars, economical crises etc... or all of that at the same time...

There is often a "providential man" who arises out of it (when not a dictator). But I doubt he does it in "peaceful times" (meaning without the precedent crisis)... do you know any historical examples ?

[arendt]

11. I agree w you; just wanted to be less pessimistic in the essay...

I don't see how to save the Enlightenment in America. People have been
so de-politicized by forty years of corporate brainwash in the media, by
the systematic elimination of dissent in the universities and their conversion
into vocational training schools.

There are many theories as to why the Enlightenment was able to avoid being
crushed by the aristocracy two hundred years ago.

Some point to the secret societies, like the Masons. But, others respond that
they were merely a convenient place for dissident aristocrats and burghers to
meet to conduct proscribed politics.

Then, there is the whole Protestant Ethic theory of Weber, that Protestantism
drove commerce which drove scholarship.

For whatever reason, enlightenment was so popular that kings vied to be the
most "enlightened" monarch.

Today, in America, the Enlightenment is spit upon, science is under assault,
and the population can't get illiterate and innumerate fast enough. I don't see
how to deal with willful ignorance. Its a recipe for demagoguery, not politics.
Is fast food and obesity making everyone dopey?

And, the hyper-pharisaical religiosity is unbelievable. It is going to take a really
big wakeup call with just the right message to get us out of this mess. How do
you wean people off the rapture-tit? It is a hermetically-sealed Manichean system.

I'm not sure about the "providential man" theory. I'm more a believer that such men
are always around, but its only when events are far from equilibrium and small
events can have large consequences that one person can make a huge difference.
OTOH, in America, we would not have survived without Lincoln or FDR. But, everyone
wanted someone "like that". So perhaps, absent Lincoln, some other person with
similar message would have been elected.

Given what I just said abouty "far from equilibrium situations, I agree with you that
providential men are unlikely without war, or its equivalent in terms of unrest.

I think we need a person with strong humanitarian credentials that can demolish
the religious argument. This person will need a strong media infrastructure behind
him/her.

Thanks for your lengthy response.

arendt

[tocqueville]

12. Thanks to you...

and if you are interested in historical analogies, you might read the one below :

http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/hl917.cfm

it hasn't to do directly with religion, but it's an amazing piece of work that reveals the true nature of the people behind the current administration...

in a way it has to do with Enlightment, but more in a "Napoleonic" style...

some extracts :

"The Lessons of the Roman Empire for America Today
by J. Rufus Fears, Ph.D.
Heritage Lecture #917

December 19, 2005 | | |


I am honored to give a lecture named after Russell Kirk, who told us to ponder the permanent things, such as history and human nature. It is about human nature and history that I want to speak to you this afternoon.

We are on patrol today in Iraq. Men and women of the United States armed forces in armored vehicles patrol the streets of Baghdad. They pass in the way of so many who have come before them: the Egyptian charioteers of Ramses II, the Macedonian phalanx of Alexander the Great, the Roman legionnaires of Cae­sar and Trajan, the Crusaders of Richard the Lion-Hearted, the legionnaires of Napoleon, the Camel Corps of Lawrence of Arabia.

All of these have come through the Middle East. Many of them have come with the best of intentions, by their lights, to bring stability, even freedom to the Middle East. All have passed away. The Middle East has been the graveyard of empires.

In the course of history, we have come to take up that burden. We live in a time as momentous as that of the American Revolution, the Civil War, the days after Pearl Harbor. In each of these watersheds in our his­tory, we have not only taken up the burden, but we have advanced the cause of freedom..."

[arendt]

14. Jeez - the White Man's Burden Round Two?...

I just ate dinner. I will read that article later, although I hate going to the Heritage site.

Thanks for the pointer and the conversation.

arendt

[EVDebs]

21. arendt, the CIA's early leadership were Knights of Malta

William 'Wild Bill' Donovan, James Jesus Angleton, Allen Dulles, William Casey, William Colby, and from Op Paperclip, Reinhard Gehlen (Hitler's intel chief)...

All were Knights of Malta, the conservative aristocratic Catholic group. You're not going to reform from the 'top' of this organization. I also hear that NSA's old head Gen Michael Hayden is a Catholic. Let's hope he isn't a KOM too.

The Freemasons have now been pretty much atenuated, with the Jesuit Ramsay having infiltrated the early Freemasonic movement and creating the degrees past the first three, which were pretty much the original Knights Templar secret society's. The Freemasons did have their heyday though into the early 1900s, with even the possibility of Kerensky's group in 1917...before Lenin's bunch shoved them aside in the USSR.

You've done a great deal in your post and I for one wish to thank you for it ! If only we could convince Bush's Base that a Third Temple in Jerusalem isn't a necessity....Now, THAT would really shake things up a bit.

[arendt]

25. Again, most useful. I'm aware of the crowd, but missed the KOM stuff...

in spite of it popping up in various books I have read.

When I mentioned the Nat Sec Act of 47, it was this disgusting bunch
of gentlemen assasins I had in mind. And, since I tend to avoid Nazi
references to avoid getting flamed, I didn't mention the Gehlen connection.

Isn't Rupert Murdoch KOM? The hypocrital "Catholic" who publishes
softcore porn and dumped his wife for a 30 year old Chinese hottie?

I'm pretty certain that the Masonic movement is an empty shell. That
said, its not quite clear what their exact involvement in 19th and 20th
century historical events was. I have read speculation that they were
behind the high-level government access given to the Zionists in the
time of WW1, and the subsequent Balfour Declaration and the much
later establishment and recognition of Israel.

I'm thinking that this Third Temple stuff is a fiddle being played beautifully
by the Mossad. Their toughest problem must be not to burst out laughing
at this utter lunacy.

Convincing radical fruitcakes to change their delusion worldview is
beyond my abilities. You need Umberto Eco.

Many thanks for your knowledgable contributions.

arendt

[EVDebs]

18. The Jesuits originated the 'Left Behind' novel's eschatology

The basis of the Bush electoral "base."

See post #17 please. Luther was for reading the Bible and coming to your own conclusions; the Papacy demanded absolute obedience. This is how the eventual Freemasonic movement took hold in the US with our Founding Fathers, btw. Just investigate the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of French Hugenots (Protestants) for example.

""The French Protestants were called Huguenots: President George Washington had a Huguenot ancestor, as did at least 5 other Presidents: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, James Garfield, and Theodore Roosevelt. A Huguenot refugee named Apollos de Revoire settled in Boston, and had a son who signed his name Paul Revere! Remember his famous midnight ride? Three members of the Continental Congress - Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and Elias Boudinot were Huguenots. Other great names include Francis Marrion, General George Patton, Clair Chennault, Admiral Dewey, Du Ponts, Henry Thoreau, Longfellow etc., etc. A Huguenot colony was founded in Florida in 1562 (years before the English landed), but was later destroyed by Spanish raiders.""

http://www.reformation.org/bart.html

[tocqueville]

19. That's the bright side, no doubt about it

but Protestantism in many other places resulted in blind obedience to the Prince (Luther was very clear about that). Besides the Bible-thumping took over from a free spiritual research based on a common belief. And they organised society, when Europe looked for secular solutions. When the Protestantic churches took over charity, others invented trade unions and social security.

I am not here to defend the Catholics : as the author points out in his original post, Enlightment is the key, and it means a break with both variations of Christianity.

Besides the Protestantic background of American philosophers, politicians etc.. never resulted in a true separation of Church and State. The US are the blatant example of a struggle that as still to be won. Many of the features that characterize America today (religion in schools or civil offices, oaths, exemption from taxes, right to perform legal marriage etc..) are considered as preposterous in many European countries and even anti-democratic...

so the picture is very complicated... and cannot be reduced to Luther vs Jesuites (who besides accepted the separation of religion and science - that's their bright side)

my point was some wording, arendt and I agree about the analogy as a whole...

[EVDebs]

22. But the pre-tribulation LeftBehind secret Rapturist that are the base

control the government right now. Which is Monbiot's point in his Guardian piece.

Also read Chris Hedges Soldiers of Christ II Feeling the hate with the National Religious Broadcasters
http://www.harpers.org/FeelingTheHate.html

along with

Impact of Millennium on the Holy Land
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week319/cover.html

The entire Third Temple movement hinges on a belief that Bush is helping bring about prophesy.

With OBL manipulating the Muslim world with fears of 'greater Israel'
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/greater-israel.htm

Bush's base pushes this madness that could result in armageddon all that closer to a reality.

[arendt]

28. I thought Rapture had been displaced by Dispensationalism...

but, I guess that the neocons are agnostic when it comes to which delusional
system they will manipulate.

I read the Hedges article - quite good. The man went to seminary. He understands
and is appalled by what they have done to Christianity.

Regarding the impact of the Millenium, Robert Stone's novel "Damascus Gate" opens
with the police squad in Jerusalem that deals with the continuous flow of nut cases
that show up their claiming to be Jesus or some other religious figure. Given the
increasing pressure of Fundamentalist nuts in Judaism, it will be interesting to see
how they treat "Jesus" in the future.

arendt

[tocqueville]

31. read post #30 please n/t

[arendt]

26. Yes, the role of religion in America is the elephant in the living room

I am perplexed that Sam Harris's "The End of Faith" has not had multiple fatwas
issued against it. Its first chapter totally emasculates religion, comparing its
state vs science over the last 500 years. His "substitute Zeus for God" exercise
is devastating.

The problem is that, as Frank Zappa said, organized religion is just a big real
estate scam. There's a lot of money to be made fleecing the flock. The mega-
churches (dismembered by Mark Crispin Miller in Harpers a few months ago -
some huge percentage think Joan of Arc was Noah's wife) are taking this
commercialized Christianity to new lows. Makes Neal Stepenson's satire of
"Reverend Wayne and the Church of the Pearly Gates" franchise look like
an honest business by comparison.

In America, religious liberals went for unilateral disarmament, ala Europe; while
the fundies went for total war. The cities are more European; the countryside
is medieval villages centered on Wal Mart cathedrals. Most city folk are as appalled
as the Europeans by the wave of fundamentalist manure burying our country.

The only way I see to get out of it is to simply remove the tax deduction for any
Church property and contributions FOR ANY CHURCH. The fundies have declared
they want to play a political role and therefore have forfeited any special consideration.
The liberals have kept quiet for fear of losing their own subsidy. A pox on both their
houses. Let them deal with taxes. It won't kill real faith. The Catholics have been
paying for their own schools forever.

arendt

[tocqueville]

32. That must be the first measure taken

it is so an many European countries. Basically subsidizing "faith" is a fatal mistake in a secular society. And even provokes the creation of scams like Scientology.

I invite you to visit this page to understand another approach to the relation Church/State

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laicity

In France and some other French-speaking countries, laïcité (pronounced /la.ee.see.tae/), or laicism, is a prevailing conception of the separation of church and state and the absence of religious interference into government affairs (and vice versa). "Laïcité" cannot be accurately translated into English. There is a difference between laïcité, a political theory aimed at separating politics and religion with the goal of promoting religious freedom, and secularism, the declining importance of faith in individuals' daily lives. One who believes (or practices) laicism is a laicist.

The term "laïcité", in its current sense, implies free exercise of religion, but no special status for religion: religious activities should submit to the same set of laws as other activities and are not considered above the law. The government refrains from taking positions on religious doctrine and only considers religious subjects from their practical consequences on the inhabitants' lives.

The French government is legally prohibited from recognizing any religion (except for legacy statutes like those of military chaplains and Alsace-Moselle). Instead, it merely recognizes religious organizations, according to formal legal criteria that do not address religious doctrine:

whether the sole purpose of the organization is to organize religious activities;
whether the organization does not disrupt public order.

Laïcité is currently accepted by all of France's mainstream religions. Exceptions include the far-right monarchist reactionaries, who wish the return to a situation where Catholicism was a state religion with a political role, as well as with some Islamist leaders who do not recognize the superiority of civil law over religious law.

Laïcité does not necessarily imply, by itself, any hostility of the government with respect to religion. It is best described a belief that government and political issues should be kept separate from religious organizations and religious issues (as long as the latter do not have notable social consequences). This is meant to protect both the government from any possible interference from religious organizations, and to protect the religious organization from political quarrels and controversies.

[arendt]

37. And, laicite makes three (new facts) you have given me...

thanks.

I really like this concept.

How did the Europeans arrive at this state of Enlightenment? All together,
or one country at a time? Who is organizing this movement - political parties?

arendt

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Good essay.

it seems to be 'essays on the death of a republic day' on DU.

I like your historical analogy. One suggestion though: your division of the history of the republic into before BBE and after BBE is overly simplistic. There are several major transformations of the republic leading up to where we are now: the civil war, the robber barons and the gilded age and its prolonged one party rule and corruption that led to the crisis years of the new deal and wwII, the first permanent state of war embodied in the post ww-II cold war era, all of which led more or less to where we are today. We didn't just go from the republic of the founders to the corrupt fascist mess we are confronted with today on Jan 20, 2000. It was a long slide followed by a steep plunge.

[arendt]

13. Let me at least explore whether BE is a major break

My focus is on "doctrine"; i.e., the operating principles of our government.

In my mind, the main issue argument for a major break is lack of a potential reversal.

I agree that the Civil War nurtured the large corporation and birthed the Amendment that led to "corporate personhood". Corporate personhood was the first step on the road back to aristocracy.

But, the Progressive reform era did reign in much of the excess of the Robber Barons. So did the Income
Tax. The Depression allowed regulation of the financial industry and sanctioned government projects to
help individuals - most notably Social Security.

So, the era of La Follette and FDR demonstrates that earlier corruptions (except corp person) could be
rolled back WITHIN the framework of the Constitution. And, the rich did not openly disavow and try to
wreck the Constitution.

In the 1970s, most corporations were still run by boards of managers who tried to act fairly. It was only
in the 1980s that the new theories of "maximizing stockholder value" and downsizing and outsourcing
took over business. The 80s were full of stories of honest, conservative small businessmen being run
out and bought out by crooks and shysters with lots of bank loans. So, again, there was no trend in
business in general to go backwards. It was imposed by a very small and very radical cadre backed
by a lot of money.

My personal theory is that the long slide of America begins with the National Security Act of 1947. This
created a black ops shop that has grown to $30 Billion of black budget today. Techniques developed by
the CIA have been brought home to destabilize our own democracy: perception management, plausible
denial, etc. The 1960s assasinations are so intertwined with the CIA and the FBI that we will NEVER find
out how the liberal movement was literally de-capitated. Then, you had the October Surprise, in which
Bush Sr was deeply involved; followed by Iran-Contra, another major spook mess.

And, in each case, the perpetrators were never caught, rarely even identified. They went from success
to success. They had a total apparatus in place to destroy Clinton - the corrupt, law-breaking prosecutor
Ken Starr, the piles of cash distributed to fan phony scandals, the setting up of a propaganda media.

With the placement of Bush Jr by the neocon spooks, I believe that the Constitution has been obliterated
by black ops methods. The CIA, FBI, and NSA have had their highest echelons purged and replace by
Bush-bots.

That is why I mark BBE vs BE. You could call it before PNAC and after PNAC. Or pre/post CIA.

Its a break because it is totally illegal, totally illogical. It is being done by brute force and by black ops.
It cannot be undone by Constitutional procedures, as the earlier eras of corporate misbehavior can.

The reason is that this is not CORPORATE misbehavior; it is INTELLIGENCE AGENCY misbehavior.
And, I lay that all at the door of the Bush Crime Family.

arendt

P.S. I would be most interested in a response to this.

[Warren Stupidity]

35. I can't give you a full response but...

a brief response is that I agree with you. (I have to go to work damnit.)

There is a distinct break here. I have elsewhere used the analogy of caeser crossing the rubicon. The demarkation point, the official crossing, was the pronouncement of their 'unitary executive' (which term I refuse to use and will simply call the new state of affairs 'the imperium') on two occasions: the signing of the torture bill where the imperium noted that laws did not apply to it, and the deliberate exposure of the imperium's domestic spy program, where the imperium further elaborated that neither laws nor constitutional restrictions applied. My lesser point was simply that the break was not between the republic of the founders and the PNAC empire, the republic of the founders had long since disappeared for the reasons we have discussed.

[EVDebs]

42. Congress's abandonment of its responsibilities under WPA of '73

The Offer Congress Can't Refuse

By Onnesha Roychoudhuri, AlterNet. Posted January 24, 2006.


The Justice Department's most recent defense of Bush's illegal wiretap program makes clear that there is no room in the president's plans for Congress.


http://www.alternet.org/story/31219 /

""The DoJ uses its 42-page "defense" of wiretaps to explain exactly what they think Congress intended by the 2001 AUMF. And the gist is this: When Congress passed this piece of legislation, it handed over their say-so in this country's defense.


The AUMF authorization transforms the struggle against al Qaeda from a zone in which the president and the Congress may have concurrent powers into a situation in which the president's authority is at its maximum because it "includes all that he possesses in his own right plus all that Congress can delegate."

The DoJ report has an inherently schizophrenic nature. The first half focuses on the supreme knowledge they seem to have about Congress's intent in passing the AUMF -- namely Congress's alleged pre-emptive support of whatever action the president might take. And yet, it spends the other half declaring war on the very branch it claims granted it such power.""

Both the AUMF and the Iraq War Joint Resolution embed the War Powers Act of 1973. In each case Bush was allowed by resolution '...as he determines...' to define what is truth.

This shockingly simple fact is behind our current national dilemma. How can we manage to get through another three more years ... knowing that the same trick will be pulled on the public again and again and again ? Congress wills it (Deus Volt !, is the battle cry) ???.


AUMF link from Sept 2001
http://news.findlaw.com/wp/docs/terrorism/sjres23.es.html

Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq Oct. 2002
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

War Powers Act of 1973
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/warpow.html

[arendt]

45. The Republican Congress has politely committed suicide...

in favor of the unitary executive.

Classic spook tactic: use the part of the government you control
to take over the part of the government you don't control.

The Dems who let themselves be railroaded by 911 and the anthrax
into signing this garbage are the biggest suckers since the Trojans
took in the horse. Top of the list: John F-ing Kerry.

This is the kind of stuff that, thanks to a corrupt corporate
media, flies under the radar. But when it hits the target, we
are all screwed.

You just managed to convince me that things are even worse than
I thought.

Pardon me while I go slit my wrists.

arendt

[EVDebs]

48. One 'trojan horse' though. They can't arrest EVERYBODY.

It would bankrupt the country to arrest and detain over HALF of te population who despise Bush right now. The bright side is this can all become public knowledge, even if we have to spread it by word of mouth alone. Lincoln's 'you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time' has never been more true.

The phony economy, the lies for war pretexts, the tax cuts for only the richest few...all will eventually MAKE people listen when as before they only had ears for the rightwingnuts.

Patience is still a virtue, Hannah !

[lapislzi]

15. Happy to give you vote # 5

As always, an absorbing and provocative read.

If you were of a mind, you could draw further analogies between the current cult of the apocalypse and the 14th-century one. They were sure the plague was divine retribution, etc. (cf Tuchman). Now we see the same thing--the "bring it on" mentality with regard to the so-called rapture.

Neither of the above fits existing models of millennialism. Compare to the Millerites, for example.

Just throwin' stuff out there. I find the religious frenzy the most scary aspect.

Thanks for the brain tweak.

[Fovea]

16. a very good read!

Thanks Hannah...
:jk:

[izzybeans]

20. The necessity of reform is quite clear.

Thanks for situating it within a particular context. This was a very interesting read.

One aspect of your essay that hits home is the utter lack of knowledge about the mobilization and institutionalization of fundamentalist movements in this country. I suppose students of social movements take-for-granted the history of the U.S. as a story of progressive reform. They leave out the rise of reactionary movements, fundamentalism being the most powerful source of collective action on the right. True the complexity of the present state is too much to grasp in real time (e.g. the capitalization of neo-cons on the fear of redemption and the end of history as but one example), however it is clear that we are in need of an archeology of the rise of what used to be radical theologies and their institutionalization into mainstream politics, even if heavily rationalized.


The reformation will have to come from the historical trajectory stemming from the enlightenment, which on my estimation has its own history of contradictions (e.g. the sophists vs. platonists, the rationalists vs. the relativists)...an essential tension between blind loyalty to empirical method and an historical critique of our relationship to those methods (today in the form of positivism vs. post structural theory: enlightened reformation vs. the unintended consequences of reform). The tools for reform are there. I do believe they will require a deep deep reading of history and a renewed respect for a revisionist sense of the truth (meaning: when you get it wrong in light of new facts, change your freakin' mind). Building that sense of truth, founded in empirical and historical reason, into the coming reformation of political decision making bodies will be the key to unlocking the current crisis.

Two twin motors of history are churning up a heterogeneous political storm. We must be students of both so as to continue with enlightened reform, and simultaneously shield ourselves from the reactionary storm.

[arendt]

27. Have you read "Coming to Our Senses" by Morris Berman?

He deals with the the whole issue of religious orthodoxy and heresy in the West.
He defines a "typology of heresy", giving Christianity, Catharism, the Scientific
Revolution, and Naziism as examples.

He points out that the historical moment determines how the same fundamental
body-centered heresy plays against the established church of its day - sometimes
the heresy is crushed, sometimes it succeeds. Whatever happens, heresies are
vibrant for only a few decades. Then they crystallize into just another establishment.

Berman predicted a more scientific version of Naziism as the next heretical wave
when he wrote the book in the late 1980s. Since then, he has completely given up
on America, advising people to go to rural areas and set up "monasteries" for the
preservation of scientific knowledge against the coming Dark Age.

He had placed some hope in the enlightenment value system, but it hasn't held.

arendt

[izzybeans]

38. He should read Pandora's Hope by Bruno Latour

perhaps he will no longer retreat.

I'll take a look.

Thanks.

[Inland]

24. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

The chief law enforcer breaks the laws.

[TankLV]

29. Wow. wonderful. I haven't seen you in a long time on here.

I hope you are well.

[kineneb]

33. Hoo-Ya! Yes! great stuff

I was just telling someone the tale of Fredrick II and Pope Innocent III. How the tool of excommunication became devalued in the 13th century by its overuse against Fred. II (wrote a paper on the topic for a High Middle Ages college class). Even before the 14th c. the Church was hitting the skids by trying to control secular governments ("Holy" Roman Empire- what an oxymoron). After being excommunicated, Fred II simply ignored the Pope: his clerk wrote that at a meeting with the Electors, F.II opened a chest, pulled out his crown, placed it on his own head, and commented "Am I not still King?" ("Go suck rocks, popie boy.") What we need is someone with the intestinal fortitude to say something similar to the retrograde religious nuts.

I love the Babylonian Captivity analogy...but did you get the irony of your own statement? 'Cause BushCo, the military and PNAC are captives in Babylon, quite literally.

My reading suggestion is one of my favorite books: A Distant Mirror, the Calamitous Fourteenth Century, by Barbara Tuchman. It is a great book, I got my copy for Christmas when it was originally published in hardcover.

And Santayana was right.

(aargh, I have spent 'way too much time studying medieval and Renaissance history...)

[arendt]

36. My irony usually takes a back seat to my utter cynicism, but...

> ...our Babylonian Captivity (both figurative, and literal).

I most certainly intended the irony. And, "A Distant Mirror" was one of
the sources I consulted while looking for introductory quotes.

The period is most interesting because, being raised Catholic, it was
totally whitewashed. When I discovered all the disgusting crap the
Church pulled, it was confirmation of my decision that they were just
a bunch of power-hungry pooftas in skirts.

Yeah, where is a German Emporer when you need him?

arendt

[kineneb]

44. beyond irony, into history

I am thankful I was raised by my grandparents who instilled in me a love of history, both theirs and in general.

I certainly see some interesting parallels between the people of the Dead Sea scrolls and the current batch of whackos. Both are looking for the end times and believe in predestination! I have am busy reading the translation of all the scrolls printed a few years ago.

We could use a new Enlightenment, but I am not going to hold my breath. I fear a new Dark Ages instead. This happens every time the religiously backward get power. Even during the Hitlerzeit (time of Hitler), and Mussolini as well, religion was used to serve the state, with the resultant backward slide into ignorance.

Now having determined that we are in the Avignon Presidency, my (snarky) question follows. Bush is one "pope," but who are the others? Cheney? Robertson? And which one is the "real pope"?;-) It is obvious they are all pretenders.

[merbex]

39. Your post brought me back to my Providence College undergrad

days and the required 2 year course "Development of Western Civilization"

While I and my classmates were required to take this Course ( which guaranteed that every undergrad would automatically receive a minor in history from PC) I was also majoring in Poli Sci. Your post blends the two beautifully

Another requirement for graduation: a year of religion.

A vivd memory of a professor teaching the religious class I took: "The Catholic Church has not had an original thinker since the 14th century"

Your post is "enlightenting" and more people should be reading it

I'm recommending it

[arendt]

47. History is always relevant...

Harry Truman said "all that's new is the history you
don't know.", meaning that humans have no new tricks
in politics, like football has no new rules. Its just
what happens in today's game that's "new".

I have used history from 600 years ago to indict the
current thugs. Education gives people the means to think
for themselves about facts, instead of accepting the
propaganda. This freethinking is part of the reason for the massive
assault on education. Stupid people are easy to manipulate
and control.

You want to know why the Chinese always make a comeback?
Because they never stop valuing education. Ditto the Jews.

America is looking like Spain, a one-shot wonder of world
looting. New World gold in Spain's case. American natural
resources in America's case. Once we exhaust the resources
we will tank so fast, the Spanish Empire will seem to have
lasted as long as the Byzantine.

Maybe I'm with Joe Bagaent - the Scots-Irish and their belligernt
religiosity are a blight on America.

arendt

[Mme. Defarge]

40. I think Al Gore

posted his version of the 95 Theses in his MLK speech.

[arendt]

46. Yeah, too bad the media decided to tear them right down n/t

[Karenina]

41. She KICKS, she SCORES!!!

TOR!!!! :kick:

[Cats Against Frist]

49. If you are a "libertarian," none of this shit would apply to you,

in the first place, because you don't have a "Bill of Social Engineering," whether it be of the Christo-facists/neocon/cultural supremacist/patriarchal/women-in-the-kitchen/big government stripe, or the Affirmative Action/identity politics/welfare state/PC/big government stripe, which has permitted left and right authoritarians, for decades, to march hand in hand toward totalitarianism.

I'm a libertarian/anarchist, and I know what we're facing, which is why I vote Dem, and encourage anyone who is not a fucking nutcase to vote dem, but the fact is, authoritarianism is the problem, and what your "Enlightenment Founders" envisioned hasn't been thought about by the right or the left, for eons. Libertarians always get the short end of the stick, and I'm sick and tired of it, truthfully. The operative root word in "libertarian," is "liberal," meaning classical liberalism, which is what the founders envisioned.

On edit: Other than that, good essay. :)

[arendt]

51. I really want to engage on this, but it will have to be after work...

if you check back around 10 PM, I should have something
to say by then.

thanks for your interest

arendt

[arendt]

52. I started a thread so as not to confuse things

I realize that we need every ally we can get to fight Bush; but the libertarians are only allies if
they wake the fuck up. This thread is not directed at you personally, but at the whole topic of
libertarianism and its role in destroying democracy in America.

You have been used, USED, USED!!!

Feel free to comment.

arendt

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2389778

[Karenina]

53. Kick!

:kick: