The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by Tom S:

This is a bit OT, and I apologize in advance for the length.

There has been tolerance for a variety of religions in our history, but it seems only when a new sect hives off from its 'mainstream' parent (evangelical Baptist, Methodist, 'Free Will' or 'Gospel' churches are an example). I'm speaking here of christian religious currents only.

Anyone outside that mainstream has had a difficult time establishing legitimacy. The Mormons didn't have an easy time of it. The Theosophists (don't laugh -- they were well-financed and in the late 1890's had nearly 200 communes across the U.S.) didn't either. American history has all but ignored Black churches -- many of which were and are still separate, and many are not as equal, as Black churches in established Protestant sects.

Evangelicals have a tradition in tent revivalisim, of travelling preachers, of charismatic leaders. These people preached an estatic transmission of faith and knowledge directly from god, manifested through them as if they were old-Testament prophets. This is distinctly different from the Catholic or Protestant churches, which may be identified with faith or sect first, and then the person of its priest or minister.

Some of the evangelicals became wealthy and influential -- e.g., Billy Sunday and Amiee Semple MacPherson -- but their 'temples', their road show healings, radio programs asking the faithful to send donations, never seemed to outlast them. These same traditions continued -- only, technology provided more opportunities, and a few preachers became more clever about their trade.

Billy Graham and Robert Armstrong were the first to begin televising their services in the 60's. Pat Robertson, Swaggart, Jack van Impe and Falwell jumped on the bandwagon later, and discovered there was a good deal of money in it for the enterprising and well-organized. Then came the PTL and 700 clubs, and the CBN, and vitamin suppliments for the faithful.

People like Robertson and Jerry Falwell created well-organized businesses that motivated their followers in the same manner as any political party; except that the goal was to motivate them to send money. But the evangelicals were still viewed as outside mainstream America, and religion was still viewed as a private matter.

I don't know who made the decision to begin motivating evangelical followings toward political goals, but I tend to think it was a fusion between Republican strategists (to whom Fallwell and Robertson were leaders who could deliver votes) and the evangelical preachers (who saw their chance for more legitimacy, more power, more money).

Ralph Reed became their in-house strategist, and the Moral Majority was born. Later, that became the "Christian Coalition" -- and the use of the word 'christian' is, I think, no accident. It was an exercise in product branding.

What these people have done is to force religion to become a public matter, something which they wish to use bind up all aspects of public and private life in America -- call it "values", or whatever one likes, but religion (and a specific brand of it) is what's being pushed on the country. It has never been *the focus* of public debate in America before.

The issue is not whether a public dialog about religion is legitimate, but whether a Protestant sect-- with a history that has more to do with hucksterisim than faith -- will be given the power to create for everyone the rules for public life and private affairs.

To paraphrase Ghandi: That justice, freedom and love always survive and triumph over evil.

A friend who is also a columnist suggested our circumstances are similar to occupied France in 1940 -- our government is run by a combination of an Occupying Force, and our culture is rife with collaborators. We went back and forth that it was foolish to romanticize what's happened to our country, but in the end I had to agree with the image, at least in part.

I honestly believe America is two countries, now. They may be countries of the mind, but the divisions are in place and can only become clearer through time. They already are.

Read Bennet's comments ("Let the great relearning begin"). Read Adam Yoshida's ("We’ve got their teeth clutching the sidewalk and [our] boot above their head. Now’s the time to curb-stomp the bastards...That’s the future of the Democratic Party: providing Republicans with a number of cute (but not that bright) comfort women").

I have to disagree with Amy Sullivan. I don't feel like trying to reach out and dialogue with these persons. Their "values" are as disgusting and repellant to me as my beliefs are to them -- and they have no interest in dialogue, either. This is a putsch, a bellwether of very difficult times.

Bush is a masterful liar, and he will piously chatter about uniting the country while reveling in the chance to do god's will by remaking it in Ralph Reed's image. And god save the Iranians, the Koreans, and all the men to be drafted.

So, two countries.

There is the Homeland (a term I've never been comfortable hearing) of the community of the faithful, the necon and fundimentalist christian true believers, those who agree we can only be safe by bludegoning real or perceived enemies and intimdating all others; the Homeland of a stirring sense of mission for the faithful to cleanse at home, and "spread freedom" abroad.

Whether from fear or honest desire, people living in the Homeland support their leaders (Bush is only one, but there are others, from Murdoch to Kristol to Reed and Swaggart), even if they know somehow they're being used -- in part because they believe support for the powerful is the path to personal wealth, security and success.

In the Homeland, the leaders do not believe in or accept anything except active and public acceptance of their agenda; silent agreement is accepted, for the moment.

In The Homeland, gays and lesbians are tolerated, for the moment. Educators and scientists will begin to understand 'creationisim' is a valid branch of inquiry, and that research must pass through the eye of a faith-based needle in order to receive consideration for funding. People of color have to understand that poverty, drugs, underemployment, are all problems for which faith is the answer.

Those children not being 'home schooled' should be encouraged by family and frinds to pray in their classrooms; the school districts will come along in time. Police and security agencies will have to become even more vigilant for Terrorists: the outsider, the stranger, the ones who are not part of the faith-based community; and they will need more laws to make the Homeland even safer.

One day, there may be a terrible incident in a major city. It may be a tragedy manufactured by the leaders to inflame and soldify the feelings of the faithful. After all, when one believes what you're doing is directed by god, nothing is forbidden, and all is forgiven. And isn't that a basic tenent of religious terrorists?

On that day, thecommunity of the faithful will understand when Rights once taken for granted are suspended, borders closed, travel and bank accounts restricted. No one would know how long the state of emergency would last. And after that day, for those not "part of the community", arrests and detention may follow.

Then, there is America. I don't think I have to tell you what that country is like -- you and I live there, in our minds and our hearts. It's a country that hopes to live in peace, and believe in the value of a single human being, as they are, without the litmus of faith or politics, race or economics. It's my country. It's a progressive, humanist country, where lifting all boats isn't just a hollow phrase, and that literature, art and science have no imposed horizons or destinations.

It's my country.

We need to keep that vision clearly in our minds in the months ahead, until Ghandi's thought becomes real for our entire country. Meanwhile, like people in France after May of 1940, we resist.

I was reading Meteor Blades's comments on Kos (also picked up on SmirkingChimp), and the 560-plus comments it generated. It's worth the time to read.

One observation MB made keeps sticking with me: That divisions in America have been redefined along secular vs. religious lines. And that 51% of the voting citizenry are willing to line up behind a leader who trumpets and champions a faith-based interpretation of reality.

MB noted that the Democratic Party as currently constituted should go the way of the Dodo. It's worth noting that the Republican Party has mutated; the GOP isn't the party of Eisenhower, or Nixon, any longer -- one reason why so many Republican politicians who came up through the 'old' GOP are very uneasy with Bush.

The GOP claims to represent traditional Republican values -- fiscal conservatisim, "small government", self-reliance over social programs and lower taxes. The 'new' GOP is in fact a marriage between the christian Right (They're 'christian' with a small "c"), NAC-style neoconservatives, and corporate interests who naturally gravitate towards anyone whos behavior promises more expansion and more profit (as of the moment, the DJIA has shot up 150 points on news of Bush's "victory").

Through Ralph Reed and Karl Rove, they've discovered how to exploit the divisions in America for their political benefit -- religious vs. secular, conservative vs. liberal, patriotic vs. 'radical'.

The idea is to walk a path to power, and maintain it, by whatever means necessary. Their agenda has nothing to do with "traditional" Republicanisim: They want to reshape American culture at home, and project it abroad. That culture is fundimentalist, a religious-neocon oligarchy, and it's mission is to "spread freedom" -- as defined by the Reeds, the Robertsons and Roves, the Scalias and Thomases, the Wolfowitzes and Perles.

These people possess an arrogance whose blindness to its own evil is stupefying. They are the people who will shape our immediate future, and that of our children, our friends, our families, and people in other countries who have the same aspirations and desire to live peacefully as we do -- but who may be sacrificed in the name of "freedom". This is what it's like to live through history as opposed to reading about it. (I'm writing this as I hear of Kerry's concession, so this isn't my most hopeful moment.)

America has become something I no longer recognize.

Meteor Blades wrote about making a radical change in the Democratic Party's leadership in order to challenge the christian Right-Neocons. I don't know if that will be enough. I don't believe people in America understand what just happened with this election; what kind of pact with the devil the people voting for Bush who "just weren't sure" about Kerry have made.

On a political level, the christian-Neocons have created a new paradigim in how they've appealed to people to support them -- and that these same principled born-agains will do anything -- lie, steal, cheat, threaten -- to win, because they believe with a perfect faith that god wants them to. It's why Bush never admits to making a mistake -- because his actions are divinely inspired, and god makes no errors. Nor do the people he works through.

Trying to appeal to American voters through traditional liberal currents of thought (social programs, humanist perspectives, support for labor, progressive ideals) when faced with religious fundimentalisim and the tactics of fascists may not work.

There's a line from a Leonard Cohen poem that's going around and around in my head: "I believe in a perfect faith in all the history I remember, but it's getting harder and harder to remember much history." I don't know what will happen, or what we will do, but the old perspectives and reliance on an innate goodness in human nature may not be givens any longer.

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