NewsFlash: Even Pharisees Spurn Ohio

Could any sentient being have missed the fact that the Buckeye State has come to symbolize all of the sleaze and corruption that is the hallmark of self-anointed Christians with chips on both shoulders and a dearth of brotherly love to which the Republican Party now panders? I suspect even Texans have finally become a bit wary of the Bush-Cheney-Abramoff-Rumsfeld-Ney-Blackwell-DeLay offal that residents of Ohio apparently have been building spas around.

Inevitably, entropy working as it does, there is some potentially good news from our own little North American Sodom and Gomorrah, in the form of mainstream church representatives actually standing up and speaking out against the corruption:

Right-wing church movements have been a staple of American politics since well before the 1692 witch trials at Salem. But only in the past few decades has the extremist church served as the grassroots base for a new breed of corporate totalitarianism. That unholy union has been nowhere more powerful than here in Ohio, and it has finally provoked a response from the state’s mainstream churches.

With huge torrents of cash from Richard Mellon Scaife, the Ahmanson family and other super-rich ultra-rightists, the fundamentalist church has formed the popular network that has spawned the Bush catastrophe. The totalitarian alliance between pulpit, corporation and military is unique in U.S. history.

With contempt for the Constitution, and unholy opposition to separation of church and state, ultra-rich ultra-right preachers like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, self-proclaimed messiahs like Rev. Moon, and sanctimonious errand boys like Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, have turned America into a “Christo-fascist” empire whose twice-unelected executive claims Divine right to rule. When it comes to their views on violence, empire, greed and intolerance, these are the most un-Christian men in America. It’s no accident that George W. Bush’s first words about the war to follow 9/11 had to do with a “Christian Crusade” against Islam. And, instead of consulting his father, a former President, W. chose to consult “a higher father.”

That this evil network of mega- churches, cults and electronic Elmer Gantrys would prove profoundly corrupt should also come as no surprise. These are the moneychangers that Christ kicked out of the temple. The ultra-orthodox cash flow from Jack Abramoff to “godly” legislators like Tom DeLay and Ohio’s Bob Ney has suffered not the slightest diversion toward true spirituality. The movement even has its own sex symbol in Ann Coulter, the “Harlot of Hate” who reaps huge sums in places like Ohio’s World Harvest Church for talking nasty while dressed in mini-skirts that would get minors arrested off urban street corners.

The real mystery in all this has been an almost total silence from the religious mainstream. In recent months a number of statements have finally come from interdenominational organizations worrying deeply about global warming. The desecration of God’s Creation is pretty far along. But the liberal denominations finally seem to see the curse of CO2.

The liberal United Church of Christ is also finally questioning the theft of Christ’s legacy for ungodly GOP purposes. The idea that Jesus would hate gays, not want them to marry, love the death penalty and sanction wholesale slaughter in oil-rich nations has always stretched the imagination even of the irreligious. Finally, the actually religious seem to be speaking out.

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Though Blackwell is a candidate in the upcoming May 2 primary, he will once again administer the election. At this moment, he has stored in his office the memory cards for all the machines that will be used to count that vote.

Blackwell has also now revealed that he owns stock in the world’s largest manufacturer of gambling machines, even though part of his courtship with the fundamentalist churches has been an aggressive, outspoken opposition to gambling. Blackwell’s office says there is no conflict of interest here. But the professions of extreme fundamentalist faith, crucial to his race for governor, have been tainted.

Republican control of Ohio’s governorship is a critical piece of what happens to the presidency in 2008. The 20 electoral votes stolen in 2004 by Blackwell, Parsley and the rest of the Republican fundamentalist network gave George W. Bush a second term. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio.

That mainstream churches here and around the United States are finally standing up to the theocratic fundamentalism that has produced “Christo-fascist” politicians like Blackwell may represent a critical swing of the political pendulum. The challenge to the powerful World Harvest’s tax status can only embolden churches that actually endorse the US Constitution.

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Rattus gingrichicus

Glenn Greenwald's weblog UnClaimed Territory continues to percolate high on my "must-visit" list, getting attention daily when circumstances permit. Having been on the road for a few days, I missed being able to keep current. Travel circumstances limited access to the egalitarian, reliable, and open-to-dissent resources of the web, where in my impression the true republican democracy is to be found, if anywhere. Not surprisingly, despite having it in my face for free every morn, I found my constitution incapable of handling the swill offered up by the propagandizing corporate media.

Apologies for quoting more lengthily than is my preference or normal practice. Greenwald's blog definitely merits your attention. For example, the recent post "Bush's Catch-22" by another site poster was of considerable interest.

Newt Gingrich's sudden criticism of the Administration's actions in Iraq received a fair amount of attention, but as part of that speech, he also criticized Bush's illegal NSA eavesdropping. As the NY Sun reported (subs. req'd):

Mr. Gingrich, who led the House from 1995 to 1999, also took a swipe at Mr. Bush's decision not to seek congressional approval before implementing a wiretapping program aimed at uncovering communications involving possible Al Qaeda operatives.

"Where I fault the administration is, sometimes it would be so easy to just be simple and straight, okay? All they had to do is go to the American people and say, we want to make sure that if the National Security Agency picks up a foreign terrorist calling someone in the U.S., that they can listen to the call," Mr. Gingrich said in a video clip posted on the South Dakota newspaper's Web site. He said more than 90% of Americans would have quickly endorsed such a program.

There is a lot of this going on. As Bush apologists realize that their leader is presiding over a rotting, dying presidency, they are straining to distance themselves as strenuously as possible from their failed Commander. Stalwart GOP filth-peddler George Conway yesterday in his National Review column remarkably proclaimed -- with troops still in harm's way -- that "this Administration is the most politically and substantively inept that the nation has had in over a quarter of a century"; made the accusation that "folks on this web site don't want to hear it, but deep down they know it's true"; sadly announced that he doesn't "consider [him]self a Republican any longer"; and rudely and disrespectfully said about the Commander-in-Chief's reign that the best thing about it "is that it's almost over."

These same would-be Bush critics have spent the last four years creating a paradigm where this type of criticism of the Commander is not permitted because such criticism constitutes aid to Al Qaeda and it is therefore tantamount to treason. Compare the criticisms made by Gingrich of the President's illegal eavesdropping and his Iraq policies to this truly disgusting declaration made by him just a few months ago on Hannity & Colmes:

I think it's quite clear as you point out, Sean, that from this tape, that bin Laden and his lieutenants are monitoring the American news media, they're monitoring public opinion polling, and I suspect they take a great deal of comfort when they see people attacking United States policies.

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There is clearly a sea change going on. The self-interested rats who propped up this Administration with blind loyalty for the least five years are now jumping ship as it sinks, desperately trying to save themselves by showing some extremely belated autonomy and independence. But where were Gingrich, Conway and Sensenebrenner for the last five years while "the most politically and substantively inept (administration) that the nation has had in over a quarter of a century" inflicted unquantifiable, arguably irreversible damage on our nation? They were accusing Administration critics of lacking patriotism and being on the side of terrorists, and they cannot be allowed to distance themselves now from the Administration to which they tied themselves.

Beyond the unsurprising fact that Bush followers are revealing themselves to be soul-less and disloyal now that their hero has fallen, the more important revelation is that they have built a framework in our country ever since 9/11 where dissent from the Commander was all but prohibited by the noxious equation of criticism with treason. All of the far-too-late criticisms which people like Gingrich, Conway and so many others are suddenly so eager to voice, have been off-limits for years now as a result of the precept -- spread by people like them -- that the President is not our public servant, but instead, is our Commander-in-Chief fighting a war in which our very survival is at stake, and to criticize him or oppose his efforts is, to use Gingrich's formulation, to give "a great deal of comfort" to the terrorists.

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The greatest evil of the last five years isn't that our Government pursued disastrous and illegal policies. It's that the Administration and its supporters attempted to immunize themselves from criticism for those actions and thus deprived our democracy of its greatest strength. To now watch the people responsible for that dissent-quashing stand up and voice the very criticisms that they have long equated with treason is far too infuriating to celebrate. It is important to ensure that the people responsible for the indescribable mess our country is in on so many levels not be allowed to extricate themselves from responsibility. There has been one political faction which has run every part of our country for the last five years and they are responsible for everything that has happened. We know who they are and it is critically important that they not be permitted to play-act as being the opposition.