Frank Schaeffer's warning: The 'Glenn Becks' have unleashed 'an anti-democratic, anti-American movement in this country'
By David Neiwert Saturday Aug 08, 2009 11:00am
[H/t Heather]
Franklin Schaeffer, the author of Crazy For God and a man who knows whereof he speaks when it comes to the great white underbelly of the American Right, really laid it out last night on Rachel Maddow's show:
Maddow: Do you think that calling the president a Nazi, calling the president Hitler, is an implicit call for politically-motivated violence?
Schaeffer: Yes I do. In fact, this rings a big bell with me, because my dad, who was a right-wing evangelical leader, wrote a book called A Christian Manifesto -- it sold over a million copies. And in that book he compared anyone who was pro-abortion to the Nazi Germans, and he said that using violence or force to overthrow Nazi Germany would have been appropriate for Christians, including the assassination of Hitler. He compared the Supreme Court's actions on abortion to that. And that has been a note that has been following the right wing movement that my father and I helped start in an evangelical context all the way.
So what's really being said here is two messages. There is the message to the predominantly white, middle-aged crowds of people screaming at these meetings, trying to shut them down, but there's also a coded message to what I would call the loony tunes -- the fruit loops on the side. It's really like playing Russian Roulette -- you put a cartridge in the chamber, you spin, and once in awhile it goes off.
And we saw that happen with Dr. Tiller, we've seen it happen numerous times with the violence against political leaders, whether it's Martin Luther King or whoever it might be. We have a history of being a well-armed, violent country. And so really, I think that these calls are incredibly irresponsible.
The good news is that it shows a desperation. The far right knows they have lost, they've lost the hearts and minds of most American people, for instance, who want health care. But they also know that they have a large group of people who are not well-informed, who listen to only their own sources, who buy the lies -- for instance, all this nonsense about euthanasia being mandatory, and all the rest of it. And these people can be energized to go out and do really dreadful things.
And we've seen it in front of abortion clinics, I'm afraid we're going to see it with some of our political leaders. And the Glenn Becks of this world literally are responsible for unleashing what I regard as an anti-democratic, anti-American movement in this country. It is trying to shut down legitimate debate, and replace it with straight-out intimidation.
Wow. Watch the whole thing. I haven't anything to add, other than hoping Schaeffer has read The Eliminationists, because we're on exactly the same track.
Login or Register to post comments.
Very scary.
Good thing the terrists have health insurance to rail against...
I'm wondering, what could happen as we get close to the passage of a health care bill? How violent and ugly could it get?
Buy stock in Tasers.
don't tasz me........ bro.
They are already calling for a "civil war"....and they don't even realize how much it's history repeating its self.
The late Tommy Douglas, a Baptist Minister and former premier of Saskatchewan, Canada, was recently voted by his fellow citizens as 'The Greatest Canadian'. One of his greatest contributions to Canada and the industrialized world, was to bring single payer healthcare into place. He succeeded in that province and soon after, the plan was implemented across the entire country. That is where Canada got its universal, single-payer system from.
My father-in-law's dad served in that first CCF legislature that dared to bring 'socialized medicine' to Saskatchewan and its is just mind-boggling to hear the stories of the struggle and violence that occurred. When the house resumes in September and they get closer to hammering out the bill, you can expect the ugliest of ugly to happen. There are hundreds of billions at stake in this and the Health Insurance Industrial complex are going to throw everything including the kitchen sink into their fight to keep making loads of money off of American people's misery.
Hate to say it but this issue will be President Obama's Waterloo, and the silent majority who know that this Nation needs to reform healthcare in a fundamental way, will need to step up and fight for it. Its going to be a smack-down donnybrook of a struggle, and its gonna get ugly. Are you all up to the task?
I sent Frank an email last night, thanking him for his work against this hate. He is dead on. You can really feel his passion, and it grew and grew towards the end of the segment.
That Mr. Schaefer is living proof that people can change for the better.
It is an interesting dichotomy, where Mr. Schaefer is warning of the negative consequences derived from the possibilities of the very same things he helped come to pass... even though he, himself, is a positive example of hope in that rationality and humanity eventually prevail (in his very own history of change).
Mr Schaefer is obviously very bright. Most of these people disrupting and shouting are barely self aware. Can't turn an artichoke into an orange because the DNA isn't there.
is that there are too many former Democrats who have been listening to FOX for so long that they don't know how to think for themselves.
My daughter will attend the school where Russ Carnahan held the Town Hall Meeting on Thursday. Although there were a lot of people there who were not local residents, there were also a lot who were.
We have a very large elderly white population in South St. Louis County, and they are so scared of Obama, that they have no qualms at all of telling random people, (like service clerks at their local drug store,waitresses, people standing in line at the grocery store) that this country is going down the tubes because of our *(N-Word)* President.
They are all as personally afraid that President Obama is going to have them euthanized, as they were that Saddam Hussein was going to drop a bomb in their neighborhood.
What they are really afraid of is the brown skin, and the idea that someone else might deserve to be treated with some humanity and compassion who isn't a WACC (white Aryan-Celtic Catholic, my son's acronym for the conservatives in our neighborhood.)
Although our district is Democratic enough to have elected Carnahan twice, the pockets of WACCs that live our here are vocal, intimidating, and are people that you would not expect. They are also arrogant enough to tell you their views no matter what the venue, appropriate or not.
I have personally had bumperstickers taken off the cars in my own driveway ("God Bless our troops-God Forgive George Bush"), had yard signs defaced and removed (Kerry/Edwards and Obama-Yes, We Can), and been accosted at sporting and dance events with my children because I was wearing a teeshirt that "offended" someone. (it said, "If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention." 2004.)
I probably should mention, as well, that we have a blue star flag and a yellow ribbon on our door because my son is in Iraq (for the second time). I was yelled at by a local garage sale attendee one morning because I would be..."sorry for my political choices if my son died."
They are out here among us. They are scary. They are serious. They are armed.
So am I. And I'm a crack shot.
I live in a redneck County in Northern California. Yep, 85% registered Republicans, 99% Okie.
If my neighbors aren't blaming the Democrats, they are blaming the illegals and the 'n*gger' in Washington, constantly.
They want perfect, "Leave it to Beaver" towns, police, fire, schools, good roads, clean air & water... and want NO taxes. hahahaha.
Nor am I scared. I don't like dealing with them when my kids are there, because they get scared. I still have two pre-teens.
I also don't like it when I'm at work, where I have to hold my tongue to a degree, because I work retail.
It is ridiculous that they don't like "socialism" but most of them want speed bumps put in the streets to slow down the speeders, stop signs on every corner and their Social Security check and Medicare.
I agree with Schaeffer,it is like they've had a mental collapse.
The Glenn Becks fail of course to mention that Hitler was an ultra nationalist, ultra conservative who hated immigrants into his country and never failed to invoke the blessings of God on everyone who agreed with him, and anti-patriotism on everyone who didn't. Sound familiar?
the Glen Beck even knows that information.
Mudder, Gott und Kinder.
That seems to be a ubiquitous symptom of such behavior.
busch und cheney ruined everything.
Yes. Yes, they helped hasten the ruining of everything.
Schaefer is very knowledgeable about this subject. I particularly appreciated that Rachel, knowing that, just let him talk for the most part.
and is very good at her job. Just goes to show you that you don't need a degree in journalism to get to the heart of the matter and tell the truth.
Wish more journalists knew that.
Even better, she has a doctorate in political science.
But there are over 30,000,000 to go! They would have ME looking forward to the Rapture, if I believed in such things, just to be left in peace from such thugs.
This man should be on every news outlet shouting this message in hopes of preventing a very violent event.
At what point is there a class action lawsuit for damages for the family or those Americans killed and wounded against FOX News, News Corp, Murdoch and the Becks themselves. They clearly don't care about America but I'll bet they care about their own wallets. Shouting fire in a crowed theatre crosses the line of free speech and that's exactly what the Becks and the Limbaughs are doing and they need to be held accountable for the innocent Americans killed or wounded because of them.
Thank you so much C&L and David Neiwert for posting this. I saw it last night and was hoping it would appear here. Kudos too to Rachel Maddow for just letting Schaeffer talk. He said everything that I have been thinking as I've noticed the rhetoric heating up. Where I live in the SC lowcountry, there are some hard cores who just cannot accept the outcome of Decision 2008 and would rather throw away the country than adjust to what looks to them like a fate worse than death.
That takes some restraint in the news world. She was perfect.
Thanks to Rachel for giving so many intelligent, factual, and honest guests so much airtime! Every time I watch her discussions with people like Schaeffer (or Frank or Sharlet) I realize these people would never be given as much airtime as she gives. Schaeffer really nails it each and every time, too. Again, Thank you, Rachel.
One of the best commenters on the current hate trend on the right that Rachel has had. I'd like to hear more from Frank S. and his history. May have to read his book.
Frank S. knows where's coming from because he was there, on the other side. He was raised in that environment, luckily he had another "awakening", one of rationalism and intellectualism. I need to read that and The Eliminationists immediately as well.
I was at the Niki Tsongas town hall this morning. It was amazing to me that the Medicare folks don't want health care for everyone else, though they agree that it works. I cannot make any sense of it. Then there are the folks who think Obama is leading us to putting people in ovens. All of them had one thing in common, they talked about Glenn Beck.
It was civil and there were no fist fights in this town hall.
You can read my account :
http://paskino.com/node/15018
and I find it hard to agree that it was civil, if as you explain, there were people with signs depicting Obama as Hitler and putting elderly in ovens. That sounds beyond un-civil.
Schaefer alludes to something that I've suspected for sometime, and that is that we are in the midst of some kind of societal pathology in this country. I must admit I have no qualifications for diagnosing something like this, but it seems to me that throughout history we have seen countries or regions or cultures just lose their minds, e.g., Nazi Germany, the witch hunts in Salem, etc. I just hope we get better soon.
Whatever you want to call it, there is a long history of that phenomenon and unfortunately, it usually doesn't end well.
I think it was Lenny Bruce who said, "I feel sorry for this country if we ever win the Cold War. Then we won't have anyone to attack but each other."
And for Salem (actually Danvers) Massachusetts that was ergot, a disease caused by lysergic acid, the L in LSD, being caused by bread made of rotting barley.
No one but a witch would claim witches aren't real! A WITCH! I FOUND A WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!
well... I got better.
the people who were willing to seize the moment to capture whatever political power, land,and property they could.
They sure got rid of a lot of people who had good farm land, progressive ideas, and good common sense with that one.
Ya think there really might be something to this drinking the koolaid thing?
is not a disease; it's a fungus. The condition was caused by people eating bread contaminated with ergot.
Cogito, ergo sum.
Too bad these haters don't think.
While the contaminated bread may have been the triggering mechanism, I have to wonder if the same kind of group-think phenomenon was at work there also.
Sexual Repression Channelled To Anger
And then "getting the hate on" feels like an orgasm.
Especially when done in large numbers.
Mass psychosis.
Mass-hysteria fueled by misinformation and mistrust is what we're seeing. We're seeing the Right scraping the bottom of the barrel of irresponsible politics as they wage on with their techniques.
We'd be silly if we didn't talk about all the Left wing comparisons of Bush and Hitler, but I think there's a key difference. While many Lefties would jump out and say that Bush was acting like a Nazi, I seriously doubt anyone was ever really planning on acting on it. Also, that rhetoric is was driven from the ground-up. This is top-down, coming from fringe Congressmen and "news" commentators like Rush and Glenn. People of limited intellectual capacity don't seem to have the ability or the desire to discern the difference between reality and how a "news" caster tends to contextualize their story for emotional effect...
They've been doing so much scraping at the bottom of the barrel they long ago broke thru and are now a long ways down into the mud and dirt and gopher tunnels below it.
something I've said here before, but, In Rwanda they gave out transistor radios and machetes. The rest was easy once the hate was stirred up. Oh, and the radio announcers were guilty of genocide too.
Re-watching "Why We Fight" last night, Eisenhower (in considering the rise of "the military-industrial complex") worried that we would become like the Romans--acquirers and foolhardy defenders of empire. Washington feared that maintaining "standing armies" would inevitably lead to militarism and decay, just as it did with the Romans.
These would seem to be fairly prescient views from two students of the subject.
RobertD, you hit the nail on the head. Ever since being a young student and studying history, the parallels of Romans and Americans is frighteningly close. I predict much the same fate for our society unfortunately. We've had it good for a long time in this country feasting off the defeat of other cultures so that we could have more. I believe this is just the beginning of a dark time. Sorry to sound so bleak, but I am a strong believer of reaping what you sow. Corruption is what led to the end of the Roman empire, and so too will it be our end. With corrupt politicians on both sides, who can you really trust? I certainly don't think that everyone in government is bad, as there are many of us who want to do good from those upper levels. The corrupt who go unnamed here want this though. They want us to be confused, and they want us fighting among ourselves. But, I also think that if we are wise,and remember the struggles of others through history, then we may find that small doorway to a better future for everyone. For Christ's sake, we know Obama isn't an irrational individual that wants to kill off our seniors, but there is a fringe who wants them to believe this. I pray for our future that we come out on top. May peace prevail.
I watched it last night and it made me feel better seeing someone on a national news program saying these things and not dodging the reality. I was hoping C&L would post it so I could urge others to watch.
Also, go Rachel for spending much of her show this week emphasizing that what's happening is a direct incitement to violence. This is going to end in bloodshed (major bloodshed, as opposed to the smaller individual acts recently) if it's not stopped.
DRST
Forcefully, eloquently stating the need for sanity in our time. Kudos, Mr. Schaefer. More and more I feel like I'm witnessing a media nightmare from Beck and Limbaugh. I'm genuinely afraid of this ratcheting-up of rhetoric from the right.
Peace to everyone.
Who was of the opinion that the rest of us should scrape our Obama stickers and pretend to be wingnutty for our own safety. I've always considered such behavior cowardly and enabling and in very important ways, worse than the wingnuts themselves. After all, could the despots throughout history have been able to accomplish what they did without the complicity of a fearful population? I'm not a particularly brave person but I can't reconcile feigned complicity for my safety with my own sense of who I am. Thoughts?
I have an Obama/Biden sticker on the back of my pick up, but I am driving up through Texas, Utah and Nevada next week, and I am probably going to scrape my proud sticker off the back of my canopy for my own safety. Too many wacko hate mongers in this country. I don't want my wife to suffer for my stubborness.
It's a sad day when you have to be afraid of your own countrymen. I have a sticker "Veterans for Obama" I'll TAPE on the window when I'm driving through more friendly parts of the country. Sad isn't it?
Stand strong. Keep the stickers. Especially Veterans for Obama.
I live in Texas and I haven't had any trouble and I won't scrape it no matter what happens.
And one that says, "Stop using Jesus as an excuse for being a narrow minded, bigoted asshole". I'm not giving any of them up.
That is soooo funny!!
n/t
I didn't know those existed. I'd love to see the looks on their faces up here in West Michigan if they saw that sticker!
Yeah, we can't run from it. We have to stand up to it.
Mine fell off the car after being beaten by the rain and (fairly ineffective) rear windshield wiper for several months. It will be incumbent on those of us with NO stickers to speak up on the behalf of those who have them, should we ever need to. I hope it never goes that far.
But this WAS a legitimate lesson of the Holocaust.
I will put my Karl Marx bumper sticker next to my Nader bumper sticker.
I've seldom heard it more clearly articulated, but this man said it like it is.
The "glen becks of this world" are calling for anarchy and an uprising. I won't regergitate what he said, but he said it like I believe it is. These wacko-right-wing-seditious SOB's are asking for someone else to do THEIR DIRTY WORK and pick up their guns and take to the streets. People are going to get hurt, and this ass hole clown, beck and his ilk, are going to look surprised and say "who, me?" when it happens.
We need to call them out and get them OUT of the mainstream. I'd like to express some other thoughts I have regarding what needs to be done, but I'd be deleted from this website in a heartbeat.
These scum are DANGEROUS!!
Beck is a statist. He would never call for anarchy.
Frank's nailing it. I think he really put a finger on the irresponsibility and severity of the situation.
tkthedream.blogspot.com for further commenting on this.
Ya, it's nice to see at least one person on TV tell it like i think most people see it!
The MSM is otherwise hear no evil, see no evil, report no evil.
The MSM gets an F in public service.
Caution: TV is not your friend.
Republicanism is an illness.
This is the second time that I've seen Rachel Maddow interviewing Mr. Schaeffer, and I'm again impressed by how he articulates the facts and his viewpoint. Great job, Rachel, and thanks again, Frank.
I believe that he should be on every talk show and every network, to bring more awareness to the dangerous nonsense that these right-wingnut conspiracy theorists keep dredging up, hoping to fool and scare countless others who want the "black president" to go away, and to let them live their meaningless lives.
It is hurtful that certain media practitioners are allowing these nutjobs to have such attention, and even endorse their rhetoric. All they care about is excellent ratings, not the common good. If worse comes to worse, these sheep will not accept personal responsibility for misinforming and inciting people to commit reckless and violent acts. This has to stop, and soon.
Until this happens, people like Glenn Blecch and Fat Bastard a.k.a the mighty Lord Limpballs will continue the circus with these sideshow freaks, and expect us to flock in large numbers for the entertainment. This, however, is not a game. This is real life, and actions have consequences.
Hitler's Brown Shirts were financed, and their propaganda (written by Henry Ford) supplied by Prescott Bush, who managed the "Hitler Accounts" at Brown Brothers Harrington in the 30's.
The Brown Shirts were part of the Nazi Party, not part of the German State.
The American Fascisti have used the same methods to destabilize and overthrow governments around the world. And now, once again, they are focussing their attention on the US.
Robber Baron War Profiteering HealthCare Profiteering Fascisti
Prescott Busch und cheney ruined everything.
this was a great segment on MSNBC. i watched it live, and was blown away by what schaefer had to say. this is a guy who know the inside of the reichwing, and knows what the real message is behind the thuggery.
this guy needs to be on every day on cnn and nbc. i have sent this video to all the people i worked with on the election.
THE ELECTION IS NOT OVER FOLKS. WE NEED TO GET EVERYONE OUT AGAIN, LIKE IN OCTOBER!!!!
the reichwing will win unless we fight back hard...
yes, more TV people need to bring up the alterior motives, and as Maddow says "stop reporting on the endless ping-pong game between the usual pundits.
hitler was a huge morphine junkie also, just like crust limpballs...
I don't mean to invoke Godwin, but... I wonder if tertiary syphilis is also a common nexus between those two.
some people are addicted to HATE. they get off on it. it's a culture club deal where the motto is we/i don't like them because they're NOT like us. it's very difficult for extremists/evangelicals/right wing to turn that on liberals but of course it does exist. this has been a very good strategy for the "social engineers" that have successfully fragmented this country into subcultures. they are really the opposite of what they think they portray.they are really against what this country stands for. this country is about INDIVIDUAL freedoms but try to be different and it's disliked/questioned. to me the extreme right/evangelical are used for voting/propaganda purposes. they get used. they may or may not realize it but when you get used it's easier to be hateful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXOYzIWsDQU&fe....
Go buy this man's book. Buy many copies.
If this type of voice outsells the right wing nutjobs, his voice gains greater credibility.
That's how PR works in the USA.
The people decide whose works get airtime.
Yes, he gets rich. So what. Then he can do even more work on behalf of Progressives.
slackjawed, and cheered out loud when he finished. This guy needs to be on every network, all day long, giving people a big dose of Reality.
have left a loaded gun on the table. Effing awesome.
This is a good illustration of what Beck is actually doing. Thanks to one Rupurt Murdoch and a minion of despicable employees. Unless we know the owners and producers names, we may be continue to be attacked by them for years to come.
The corporate owners and producers know just what they are doing, and they are despicable. Beck is just one screwed DJ - the target of our disappointment should be the people behind Beck. there's not even that many of them.
Think about it - the worlds most powerful nation is being manipulated by a handful of private citizens we don't even know the names of, simply because they have a megaphone, and nobody else does.
I've been waiting for someone to make the connection between the healthcare town hall hooligans and the pre-Nazi Brown Shirts.
__________________________
Last night, Rachel Maddow reported that Fox News only posted Democratic town hall information. I just checked and there is now a second link to GOP town halls. Don't know when it was added, but it would be interesting to learn of an effect of Rachel's reporting of Faux Noise partisanship and some corrective action by Roger Ailes's minions.
Glenn Greenwald shamed them into posting it.
http://www.trivia-library.com/c/topical-contr...
As he wrote in Mein Kampf, "I'll put an end to the idea that a woman's body belongs to her. . . . Nazi ideals demand that the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand."
I cannot believe that after 8 years of bushitler this and bushitler that, that anyone on the left could complain about this issue with a straight face. Google "Bush hitler" and you'll get almost 1.2 million hits.
Here's a lovely site with all sorts of examples. T shirts, coffee mugs, bumpers stickers...
http://semiskimmed.net/bushhitler.html#moveon
"Mr Soros says a "supremacist ideology" guides the White House. He hears echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary: "When I hear Bush say, 'You’re either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." It conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort mit (The enemy is listening): "My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitised me," he said."
It was only a few years ago that people couldn't get enough of this crap. Now the shoe's on the other foot. Why is everyone so surprised/outraged?
With Bush the comparison is apt.
It matters if it's apt or not apt.
Torture
Murder
Assassinations
Religious fervor
Corporatization
Intolerence
there's eight more facist things busch und cheney did but there's a start for you. cheers.
...and those people on the right would probably try to make the same ridiculous argument. Sorry, pathetic as it is, no one should really be surprised by this rhetoric. It's been going back and forth for years. I guess that's just what idealogues do.
The one person who had more to do with actually bringing Hitler to power, financing his Nazi Party, providing propaganda and logistics - was GW's grandfather Prescott Bush.
That's a legacy the Bush Family has done nothing to live down.
I think that's a bit of a stretch. I believe it was really his father in law, George Herbert Walker and Averill Harriman- both who ran Brown Brothers Harriman- and Fritz Thyssen who have been proven to be the masterminds behind that whole affair. Still, Bush's grandfather certainly was involved at some level.
Regardless, that all happened before Bush was even born. I think if a list was compiled of all of the ancestors of American and European families that did business with the Germans during that time you'd have plenty of people to compare to Hitler, no?
Hello, Ted Kennedy.
Hell, Joe Kennedy practically swooned for Hitler.
Regardless, I don't believe in punishing people for other people's mistakes.
Well, Frank just moved himself up to the top of the kill first - ask questions later list being passed around in some circles down south..
Frank is usually right about this stuff, unfortunately, because he lived it for years up to his eye balls in hate, day in and day out. Somehow we have to get back to a position where we're actually talking rationally to each other not looking at your neighbor down the barrel of a weapon. This has started to look like the bad days of the 60's-70's and riots all over the US regarding race, war and politics..Sound familiar??
If this insanity actually leads to violence, we as a people have learned nothing over the last 50 years of our history and that's how civilizations collapse...
ya, though this is not a ground up '60s movement, and we are dealing with a small minority that wants to look big. Comparisons of bush to nazis is an obvious parallel, now that we know about the murder, torture, and war profiting - amounts to genocide mr. busch und cheney.
The Republicanz will always attempt to deflect through projection, or by redirection. despicable.
...go watch Der Ewige Jude. See if you notice any parallels between this nasty piece of work and what you see on TV today.
if the moderate germans in 28 stood up to the thugs, things would have been very different.... it aint gonna happen here.......... i have seen this all my life, being a non x-tian.
... Crazy for God
I think what drove my parents was their reaction to the theological battles in which their early faith was forged. Both Mom and Dad were traditional Protestants trying to come to terms with the theological liberalism that was sweeping through the seminaries and mainline denominations starting in the early 1900s. There had been doctrinal differences between Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians; but prior to this time, the denominations shared an orthodoxy that today would be called fundamentalism. All Protestants had believed in a literal Bible and the divinity of Christ, not to mention the virgin birth and Christ's resurrection. But Darwin's theory of evolution challenged the Bible, and the academic discipline of "higher criticism" claimed mere human authorship for scripture.
Traditional Protestants such as my mother's missionary parents, or my newly born-again father, inherited the enthusiasms --and the paranoia --of the counterattack by fundamentalists against the so-called modernists. By the 1920s, the modernists were taking over the seminaries and the bureaucracies of the big denominations. New York's most prominent Baptist minister, Harry Emerson Fosdick, converted to a new kind of orthodoxy --the belief in a liberal progressive vision of mankind. And he began to preach that the Bible was not literally true, but that God would save the world through human progress. (After the horrors of the World Wars, his ideas about utopian progress fell out of fashion, but the liberal deconstruction of the scriptures continued.)
J. Gresham Machen, a theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary, opposed Fosdick. Machen published a book called Christianity and Liberalism and argued that any theology that denied Christ's divinity or doubted the Bible was not Christianity. But Machen lost the battle. Princeton Theological Seminary was taken over by the liberals. And Machen was fired for being too conservative, a last hold out for the old literalist view, of the Bible.
Machen was my father's hero, mentor, and friend. Dad kept a big black-and-white picture of him taped inside his bedroom cupboard. When I was very young, I heard Machen's name a lot. As I got older, Dad talked about him less.
I think my father lived with a tremendous tension that pitted his growing interest in art, culture, music, and history against stunted theology frozen in the modernist-fundamentalist battles of his youthful Christian experience. Dad took Machen's firing from Princeton personally. My father's theology was formed in a particularly bitter moment and never evolved along with the rest of his thinking. The theological battles of the 1920s and 1930s shaped Dad in the same way that political battles would shape the Vietnam generation in the 1960s. Passions forged in those battles became part of a personal identity that was difficult for people who did not share the passionate and polarizing experiences to understand. --FRANK SCHAEFFER
(Part 1 Childhood - Chap.18 pp.114-115)
Recreated using PaperPort version 11.1 (11.1.0.300)
Amended:
Harry Emerson Fosdick:
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Emerson_Fo... ]
John Gresham Machen:
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Gresham_Machen ]
http://teapartypatriots.org/
Tea Party Patriots - The "Official" Grassroots American Movement!
Complete with corporate "partners"!
That was the most insightful, succinct eight minutes of information that I've heard about the right wing hysteria we've been seeing at these town hall meetings and the correlation with the organizers, Fox News, Limbaugh and the right wing media.
all of these people of enlistment age don't.
Much easier terrorizing a Congressman with a mob behind you than to stand a post or take a patrol. The military not your game but you still want to be a tough guy/girl and kill lots of Muslims? Then you should be contacting Xe and enjoying life as a highly paid thug in Prince's crusade. But again, that's probably too scary for these teabagging cowards so best just stick to yelling at the moon.
I watched this last night and I have to say it was great to have someone doing some plain speaking about this issue. The "I want my country back" crowd is gearing up for violence. All the rightwing talk show hosts are egging it on and they know it. When someone does get killed; they will all throw up their hands and say "Not me, I didn't contribute to this." Shaeffer knows what he is talking about. The problem is how to stop it.
What to do? As SixofSevenEights alluded to in an earlier post on this thread, perhaps someone (John?, BlueGal?) should organize a letter writing campaign to the individual SHAREHOLDERS at Faux news. We could let them know of their complicity in stirring violence up; complicity that should be followed by prosecutions if there is more violence.
Olympic Park Bombing:
Then[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbau3OG4lBc ]
Olympic Park Bombing anniversary:
Now[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGIHlyknt98 ]
There is one of your lone Phuckin wolves... FOX
What prompts these nuts, your in the ballpark Mr.Schaeffer ♥
I always thought the revolution would come from the left. Silly me. The far right is armed to the teeth and angry as hell.
... and I'll assume you don't spend much time online? :)
[ http://charlesgoyette.com/uploaded_images/Ron... ]
The democratic Dutch apportioned their state TV budget between various production entities based on demographics, so much for the Roman Catholics, so much for the liberal Protestants, so much for the communists, so much for the evangelicals, and so on. We hooked up with EO, the evangelical state-funded Dutch TV producers. They supplied the logistics that a state TV entity has and got us permission to film in museums all over the world, where Dad would stand in front of great artworks, from Michelangelo's David to Marcel Duchamp's Bride Descending a Staircase, and proclaim our answers to modern culture.
When we started making How Should We Then Live? Dad had not wanted to even mention abortion in the series. We were already in production when the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
If it hadn't been for me, Dad's reputation as an evangelical scholar—a somewhat marginal but interesting intellectual figure—would have remained intact. As it was, my absolutist youthful commitment to the pro-life cause goaded my father into taking political positions far more extreme than came naturally to him.
There was nothing intellectual, let alone religious, about my visceral opposition to abortion. My antiabortion fervor was strictly personal. It had a name, Jessica, my little girl, proof that conception is good, even an unexpected teen conception. I knew that "unwanted" can become very wanted indeed. I also think that my gut reaction against abortion originated back when I was a child pressing my ear against a series of fat lovely bellies of my sisters, various unwed mothers (who were guests), and several L’Abri workers and listening to all those unborn babies' hearts beating. There was also another very personal motive: all the CP kids at Chalet Bellevue I had played with, and, in the case of Jean Pierre, merrily jacked off with. I didn't want people just like my spastic friends to be eliminated. And perhaps my polio, being the only "Yank" in an English school, my dyslexia, and a weird childhood, all also gave me a natural empathy for outsiders, and the unwanted.
I barged into Dad's bedroom while he was eating his daily breakfast of two soft-boiled eggs with toast, and tea. I had just come home from yet another successful fundraising tour in the States. Dad and I had been arguing for several weeks before my trip. We picked up where we left off.
"They're Catholics!" Dad said, before I even opened my mouth. We instantly got into a screaming match.
"How can you say you believe in the uniqueness of every human being if you won't stand up on this?" I yelled.
"I don't want to be identified with some Catholic issue. I'm not putting my reputation on the line for them!" Dad shouted back.
"So you won't speak out because it's a `Catholic issue?'
"What does abortion have to do with art and culture? I'm known as an intellectual, not for this sort of political thing!" shouted Dad.
--FRANK SCHAEFFER (Part 3 Turmoil - Chap. 42 pp. 265-266)
Recreated using PaperPort version 11.1 (11.1.0.300)
Frank Schaeffer's warning: The 'Glenn Becks' have unleashed 'an anti-democratic, anti-American movement in this country' . Duh really ? Beck , Hannity , Limbaugh , the Fox propaganda network and the right wing are no less than domestic terrorists , the stinking pigs sit with a big American flag draped behind them while they are operating just like Hitlers brown shirts , no difference at all , it's as if that is the play book they are using and the mental midgets in this country believe these scum bags and are coming unglued freaking out ! What I want to know is how much more of this shit are we going to put up with ? They gotta be stopped . It's gotta come to a head sooner or later and we sure as hell cannot let these evil lunatics and their pea brained followers come out on top and take over . NO WAY .
Wow that was awesome ... it is so good to hear someone effectively call out these right wing mentally broken dangerous people. I downloaded this video to watch several times and to send to people.
The title of Pat Robimson's column says it all. ""Time To Go, Grampa" Yes Pat, it is indeed time to go home. You have been making millions with you message of hate and intolerance for long enough.
Im very impressed by Franklin Shaeffer
No sh*t and oh sh*t.
I overheard in the restaurant I manage, from a good customer that I (used to) like. "I mean, hell, people said all kinds of things about George Bush when he was president, but now, if ya say somethin' about the n*****, then you're a damn racist.
Exactly, you damn racist.
Res Ipsa Loquitar
Inappropriate comparisons and equivalencies are a republican trait.
It demonstrates stupidity and frustration.
it's another form of the childish "i know you are, but what am i" routine.
He's proof that people can change.
I remember some of the books he wrote during the 1980s. My dad had some of them lying around the house along with copies of "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" and back issues of the Spotlight, an anti-Semitic, far-right rag.
Schaeffer's early books were...well...bad. They were 150 page boilerplate rants against "the ACLU, baby murderers, commies, and the homosexual agenda." However, about 10 years ago I picked up a copy of one of the books he wrote after converting to Greek Orthodoxy. I couldn't believe the difference! He was still conservative (and still is, in many ways) but his attitude had completely changed. He spoke of God and his faith in very rational and humble tones.
I read his latest book "Crazy for God" a few months ago, and I liked it a lot. I've pre-ordered his next book "Patience With God", and I'm looking forward to reading it.
..Look at all of this hate and violence over lies being spread about health care reform. The Beck's of the world that supported the W dictatorship are now whipping the mobs into a frenzy because his guy lost. What's a President to do? Well, there were probably a lot of things he should've done because its looking like there will be too many compromises with the remnants of the last administration's party to make health care reform effective but at least the President will cross that off his list - great huh? They aren't in power and yet they're in control. Makes no sense. But what if the President would have made the full court press and not only gone after a real Public Option and dare I say it, the Single Payer as well as the last administration for its crimes. Look at the crap the last administration got away with - who's to say the people who've been whipped up into a frenzy aren't empowered by the fact that their heroes, W and his ilk, have dodged the War Crime bullet.
The day is coming when I'll hear someone lie about the President's plan and I'll ask them for proof not rhetoric. As a law-abiding citizen, what else can I do? Educate the masses! Speak loudly and truthfully! Something the Beck's of the world only get half-right which makes them half-assed.
Someone has to say what is really happening
and it has fallen to Frank Schaeffer to say
the freaking truth. Then you have the Catholic
Kings (Bishops, Cardinals, Popes) right behind
these nuts at the abortion clinics, right behind
the republican party, ready to support
Newt Gingrich that shining newly anointed
Catholic or anyone else that republicans
push on America and to condemn John Kerry
as not being fit to receive communion...of all
the freaking nerve...and these guys have nerve
make no mistake about it.
Unfortunately it will only get worse and all
of the above want it to get worse b/c, in that
case, people will be flocking to churches when
the new hard times come-a-visiting and once
again they will feel needed and all the shit
they did will be forgotten... just when things
look the worst for the above named royalty
they know that the tide will turn in their favor.
It has to b/c it can't get any worse. Unemployment
is good, poverty is great, high numbers of uninsured,
wonderful, b/c the worse things get the better they
get... for some people. Just ask Pastor Parsley, a guy
who thrives on misery.
Schaeffer speaks the truth.
I'm surprised that he isn't more in the "crosshairs" of the lunatic right? I mean, they don't see him as a traitor?
...to recall JFK's assassination will also remember Adlai Stevenson being accosted by an angry mob in Dallas no more than a couple of weeks before Kennedy was killed. People remarked about the poisoned atmosphere then, which sounds eerily similar to today. Scary!
Login or Register to post comments.