monstrous_hypocrisy unhinged 'in this version of the christian gospel, the exploitation and abuse of other human beings is a good. homosexuality is an evil. and this global, heartless system of economic rationalism has morphed into the the rhetoric of the christian right into a test of fatih. the ideology it espouses is a radical evil, an ideology of death. it calls for wanton destruction, destruction of human beings, of the environment, of communities and neighborhoods, of labor unions, of a free press, of iraqis, palestinians or others in the middle east who would deny us oil fields and hegemony, of federal regulatory agencies, social welfare programs, public education - in short, the destruction of all people and programs that stand in the way of a christian america and its god-given right to dominate the rest of the planet. the movement offers, in return, the absurd but seductive promise that those who are right with god will rise to become spiritual and material oligarchs. they will become the new glass. those that are not right with god, be they poor or muslim or unsaved, deserve what they get. in the rational world none of this makes sense. but believes have been removed from a reality-based world. they believe that through jesus all is possible. it has become a christian duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a christian america where freedom means freedom of the powerful to dominate the weak. since believers see themselves as becoming empowered through faith, the gross injustices and repression that could well boomerang back on most of them are of little concern. they assuage their consciences with the small acts of charity they or their churches dole out to the homeless or the mission fields. the emotion-filled religious spectacles and spiritual bromides compensate for the emptiness of their lives. they are energized by hate campaigns against gays or muslims or liberals or immigrants. they walk willingly into a totalitarian prison they are helping to construct. they yearn for it. they work for it with passion, self-sacrifice and a blinding self-righteousness. 'evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty,' simone weil wrote in 'gravity and grace.' and it is the duty of the christian foot soldiers to bring about the christian utopia. when it is finished, when all have been stripped of legal and social protection, it will be too late to resist. this is the genius of totalitarian movements. they convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration.' - chris hedges 171201 ... unhinged 'the radical christian right calls for exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of god. its members do not commit evil for evil's sake. they commit evil to make a better world. to attain this better world, they believe, some must suffer and be silenced, and at the end of time those who oppose them must be destroyed. the worst suffering in human history has been carried out by those who preach such grand, utopian visions, those who seek to implant by force their narrow, particular version of goodness. this is true for all doctrines of personal salvation, from christianity to ethnic nationalism to communism to fascism. dreams of a universal good create hells of persecution, suffering and slaughter. no human being could ever be virtuous enough to attain such dreams, and the earth has swallowed millions of hapless victims in the vain pursuit of a new heaven and a new earth. ironically, it is idealism that leads radical fundamentalism to strip human beings of their dignity and their sanctity and turn them into abstractions. yet it is only by holding on to the sanctity of each individual, each human life, only by placing our faith in tiny, unheroic acts of compassion and kindness, that we survive as a community and as individual human beings. these small acts of kindness are deeply feared and subversive to these idealists' - chris hedges whatever happened to the_golden_rule you republican voting christians? 171205 what's it to you? who go blather from