By definition, imperialism - whether of the nationalist, or neoliberal variety - creates enemies.

And no one created enemies better than ex-President George Bush and the sinister cabal of neoliberal-imperialists around him.

U.S. imperialism is a unique cocktail of neoliberalism, fascism, and fundamentalist Christianity. [PCE]

This absurd oxymoron provides it with the kind of demonic 'righteousness' of the likes of the late Jerry Falwell, Marvin Olasky and Pat Robertson.

Jim Inhofe's biblically-driven opinions on climate change, and Israel, would be hilarious were it not for the influence of such antediluvian drivel on US policy.

Among their more bizarre beliefs, one comes straight from the oddest book in the Bible: the Book of Revelation.

So, if you're on the lookout for enemies, where better to start than with people who want to drive the Jews out of Israel?

It strains all logic, but it goes like this: if the Jews are driven out of Israel, J.C. will have to postpone His Second Coming, and Rapture will not take place.

Prayer Rally Draws Thousands in Houston

Governor Rick Perry's recent Prayer Rally sums up the absurd combo of social Darwinism and a fake, sentimental, 'Christianity' which is the hallmark of the Republican neocons ...

“Lord, you are the source of every good thing,” Mr. Perry said, as he bowed his head, closed his eyes and leaned into a microphone at Reliant Stadium.

“You are our only hope and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins.

"Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace.

"We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us and for that we cry out for your forgiveness.”

NYT  06 Aug 2011

Norway Attacks Put Spotlight on Rise of Right-Wing Sentiment in Europe

"A return to primordial loyalties"

The attacks in Oslo on Friday have riveted new attention on right-wing extremists not just in Norway but across Europe, where opposition to Muslim immigrants, globalization, the power of the European Union and the drive toward multiculturalism has proven a potent political force and, in a few cases, a spur to violence.

The success of populist parties appealing to a sense of lost national identity has brought criticism of minorities, immigrants and in particular Muslims out of the beer halls and Internet chat rooms and into mainstream politics ...

NYT  23 July 2011    Global Labour Markets    Pawns or Players

IDS & The Third Face of Power    'Primordial Loyalties'

Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.

Hopes for peace deal fade as US abandons settlement freeze talks

Hitler's Posthumous Triumph II

A US diplomat was quoted last night by Reuters as saying that Washington would no longer seek a settlement freeze and was "ending the contacts to try and achieve another moratorium".

As another Western official confirmed the end of such efforts, the diplomat said:

"This is not the time to renew direct negotiation by renewing the [settlements] moratorium."

The diplomat insisted that the US would "try to forge another way to renew peace talks", and would seek to work for a deal between the two sides on the issue of borders and security.

But it was far from clear last night what other confidence-building measures could be devised to entice a sceptical Palestinian leadership back into direct talks. A return to the shuttle diplomacy which preceded the brief period of direct talks earlier this year, was one possibility.

Palestinian officials had no immediate comment but it appeared likelier than ever that some leading officials in Ramallah would turn their minds to the possibility of securing a UN Security Council declaration recognising an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders.

The US, which has so far shown no public enthusiasm for such a course, would come under heavy pressure from Israel to veto such a declaration.

Israeli insists that only direct talks can produce a solution to the conflict.

Independent  08 Dec 2010    A violent aggressive culture    Hitler's Posthumous Triumph    Israel

Israeli moderates outraged as rabbis target non-Jews

Christine O'Donnell brings unlikely Tea Party triumph to Delaware

The result delivers another shock to the Republican party establishment trying to withstand the battering it has had this year from the grassroots Tea Party.

O'Donnell, who is pro-gun, anti-abortion, fiscally conservative and believes masturbation is a sin, won by 53% to 47% for Mike Castle, who has served the Republicans for 30 years, including stints as governor and in Congress.

O'Donnell was the leader of the Christian lobby group Saviour's Alliance for Lifting the Truth.

In a television interview a decade ago, she said: "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. So you can't masturbate without lust." ...

Such is the anger among conservatives who think Obama is a socialist and the Republicans not rightwing enough that they were prepared to vote in O'Donnell, even though polls suggest she has little chance of beating the Democrats for the seat in November. The same polls suggested that Castle could win the traditionally Democratic state.

Her campaign received a boost two weeks ago when the Tea Party endorsed her and gave her $250,000 in funding.

Last week she was given another boost when Tea Party favourite Sarah Palin also endorsed her as did the National Rifle Association ...

The Christian Right  15 Sept 2010

Republicans don’t abstain in Delaware

Tea Party Movement

Rove 'proud' of US waterboarding terror suspects

A senior adviser to former US President George W Bush has defended tough interrogation techniques, saying their use helped prevent terrorist attacks.

In a BBC interview, Karl Rove, who was known as "Bush's brain", said he "was proud we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists".

He said waterboarding, which simulates drowning, should not be considered torture ...

Mr Rove has just written a memoir, Courage and Consequence, in which he defends the two terms of the Bush administration as "impressive, durable and significant".

BBC NEWS  12 Mar 2010    A Violent Aggressive Culture    Torture

'Proud that waterboarding made world safer'

Currently, with the possible exception of Turkey, Islamic communities take their political thought from the Koran, demanding the implementation of "Sharia Law".

Democracy is, under Sharia Law, regarded as offering a licence 'to sin'.

The notion that one should draw political policies from the Bible - apart from the influence of the Sermon on the Mount on early socialists - is one which would meet with incredulity in most European post-Christian nations.

However, there are Christian groups who still believe that the Bible does provide explicit information which should influence policy.

In the case of one government, this is drawn from an unlikely source: The Book of Revelation.

There are differing views as to the meaning of the Book of Revelation - it has been argued that it is a coded attack on the Roman Empire - but it has been possible for the more credulous to read into it almost anything they fancy might become true. It's a Biblical alternative to Nostradamus.

The suggestion that when the Jews returned to Israel, the Second Coming of Christ to establish His Kingdom on earth would be imminent, has a strong appeal in Washington:

For four years, Americans have lived under an administration that holds twice-weekly bible classes in the White House and daily prayer meetings at the Department of Justice. The Christian right is no stranger to Washington's corridors of power.

But an unholy combination of a born-again president, a burgeoning family-values movement, and the canny political strategies of Karl Rove has delivered to today's Christian fundamentalists an unprecedented influence over American government.

As Esther Kaplan shows in this fast-paced investigation, no condom fact sheet or obscure drug advisory panel is too small to escape the roving eyes of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, or the many other political advocacy arms of the evangelical right.

While organizations that promote family planning and sex education are the targets of relentless audits, church groups receive hundreds of millions in federal dollars for programs promoting sexual abstinence, faith-based social services and marriage training, especially for the poor.

Religious considerations even shape the government's foreign aid policies and its war on terror.

Thus Amazon.co.uk's synopsis of the following book:

How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House, Esther Kaplan

Follow this link to Amazon.com for an intriguingly different review of:

... The Book of Revelation refers to "a thousand years" several times, and end-timers have thought that this is a clue that the Rapture will occur around the time of the millennium. Revelation also gives a special role for the city of Jerusalem and these two things help bring about this alliance, overcoming what one might think is an unbridgeable chasm. As Lyons says "Ironically, given American fundamentalism's historic ambivalence about Jews, it was the 1948 founding of Israel, coming as it did near the end of the millennium, that gave the End Times prophecy industry a boost." The true believers see this conjunction of events as a sign of the beginning of the end.

As a result, Christian fundamentalists have become some of the strongest boosters of Israel and the most implacable foes of Islam, supporting even Israel's most hard-line policies on settlement expansion, seeing all these things as fulfillment of Biblical prophecy that the end times are near. Belief in the rapture and seeking to hasten its arrival trumps everything else. At the broadcaster's convention, Hedges says that:

The [American] Christian writer Kay Arthur, who can barely contain her tears when speaking of Israel, professes that although she loves America, if she had to choose between America and Israel, "I would stand with Israel, stand with Israel as a daughter of the King of Kings, stand according to the word of God." She goes on to quote at length from Revelation, speaking of Jesus seated on a throne floating about Jerusalem as believers are raptured up towards him into the sky." ...

Mano Singham's Web Journal

Imperial theology and Corporate fundamentalism, February 19, 2007

By Preston C. Enright

Hedges does a great job of exposing how the Christian Right serves fascism - fascism defined as the marriage of corporate power and the government, along with beligerent nationalism and the utilization of state violence.

There's no better example of that marriage than our massive military industrial complex and the growing prison industrial complex.

It can be difficult to get normal, healthy human beings to support invasions, overthrows, economic injustice and global class war; but when people like Pat Robertson and James Dobson are there to put a smiley, pious face on it, then "good" Americans will rally behind the cause of Christo-fascism.

Hedges isn't the only one sounding this warning, Michael Weinstein's "With God on Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coup in the US Military" touches on the same themes.

While Weinstein has first-hand experience as a member of the US Air Force, Hedges' experience comes from living in the countries that have suffered the violence of our so-called Christian nation.

He has been to Guatemala, El Salvador, the Occupied Territories, Iraq and many other parts of the world where our investment in war and our training of proxy armies has killed thousands upon thousands of people.

Pat Robertson has been particularly supportive of dictators that the US likes, such as Charles Taylor in Liberia, and Rios Montt in Guatemala. Robertson was also in Nicaragua to support the terrorist Contra army that the US created.

Not surprisingly, the high priests of Christo-fascism, people like Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager and others spend countless hours on this nation's airwaves to rally the troops.

Oftentimes accusing our victims of the sort of terror and plans for world domination that our masters of war have been implementing for generations.

That's one aspect of this pseudo-Christian movement Hedges should've spent more time on, the role of right-wing talk radio to misinform an intellectually vulnerable segment of the US population.

Then again, there are those who simply want to be deceived, since they are the ones who have been pulling the triggers on the Apache attack helicopters and the .50 caliber machine guns.

As Sinclair Lewis said, "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."

It's here.

For some hopeful suggestions as to what to do about it, I read journals like Sojourners, Utne Reader and Yes! magazine, and support progressive media efforts like "Democracy Now!" and "Head on Radio" with Bob Kincaid.

Amazon.com 19 February 2007

Unrest in Syria and Jordan ...

U.S. Blocks Security Council Censure of Settlements

Slow death of Middle East peace process

Ike was right all along

A nation against Islam

A new military paradigm

Hopes for peace deal fade ...

Christine O'Donnel ... Tea Party triumph

Rove 'proud' of waterboarding

Religion and Politics

The Rapture

'American Fascists'

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