The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy

The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy

“The world is mental in some way that we do not yet understand, but that which we’re edging toward understanding. And the world is made of language. I can’t say that enough. Whenever we get into these discussions about reality, or effects in space and time, we are operating outside this assumption that the world is made of language.” – Terence McKenna, from a talk he gave on September 11, 1993.The Excavator

“As always: combatting Terrorism is not the end of the War on Terror; the War on Terror is the end in itself, and Terrorism is merely its pretext.” – Glenn Greenwald, “Since bin Laden’s death,” May 1, 2012.

Jose Rodriguez, one of the CIA’s inquisitors, defended torture and the Agency’s destruction of evidence on CBS’s 60 minutes on Sunday, April 29.

As the former Deputy Director for Operations, Rodriguez committed many war crimes, torture being among them. He is a 21st century version of a Spanish inquisitor. His job is to protect National Security orthodoxies, smear victims with false charges, and sell the lie to the American people that the War on Terrorism is a noble struggle which the CIA must fight with an iron will.

According to CIA inquisitors and their defenders in the press, no questions about CIA policies should be raised because the CIA is holy and pure, while its detractors are just a bunch of conspiracy theorists, left-wing radicals, and Islamofascists.

As we can see, there are many similarities between the modern charges of terrorism and conspiracy theory made by intelligence agencies and the medieval charges of blasphemy and heresy made by religious authorities. The Catholic Church promised its flock salvation; the National Security State promises its flock security. Neither salvation or security can be delivered by political and religious authorities, but that fact hasn’t stopped religion and government from going out of business yet.

The most important element of the CIA’s 21st century inquisition is staining the victim with guilt. In CIA torture sessions, the “terrorists” who confess their guilt are treated more mildly and kindly than the “terrorists” who insist on their innocence.

American playwright Arthur Miller said that staining the victim with sin and guilt has been used by political and religious authorities throughout history, most famously in Salem, Massachusetts in the late seventeenth century and during McCarthyism in the 1950s. “This is not a phenomenon from 1692 or 1952 or anything like it. It is right now,” said Miller.

The assumption of guilt is stronger than the weight of facts. Whether the innocent victim is a “heretic,” or a “terrorist,” the wolves of terror and torture always justify their actions by spreading mass hysteria, indoctrinating the population, placing propaganda above truth, and smearing critics.

Deanna Proach wrote in her article, “The Spanish Inquisition: The Use of Torture in the Inquisition,” that during the early period of the Inquisition, “Only those who refused to confess their sins were tortured severely.” Think about that. Once you’re called evil, it’s game over. No trial can save your ass. You are condemned to die. Osama Bin Laden could’ve hired the smartest Jewish lawyer in Israel, bribed the judge of history with CIA money, terrorized the Jury into accepting Allah as the master of the Earth, and he still would have lost the case because he was declared Evil by the U.S. government.

The power of evoking evil in the enemy is a religious power, and modern totalitarian governments have embraced this power with zeal, especially the governments of America, England, and Israel. False flag events such as 9/11 and 7/7 show that the CIA, Mossad, and MI6 are fine with exploiting the god-like faith that has been invested in them by their flocks. They have been corrupted because it is hard to resist the power and glory that one receives from having the public believe in the justness of your institutional authority.

Criminal abuse of the public trust is natural whenever political and religious authorities are given total obedience. The corruption of the Catholic Church, political Islam, and institutions like the CIA, MI6, and Mossad all stem from the same root: mindless public faith.

Placing your faith in torturers, whether Islamic or Western, religious or political, is a mark of ignorance and shame. Torturers of all eras, dogmas, and authoritarian systems share the same basic human flaw: they believe they are good, and those being tortured are bad.

In Iran, the Islamic torturers believe that individuals who have been tortured deserved it because they Western spies or unfaithful to the Supreme Leader. They justify their acts of evil by asserting their purity and accusing their victims of transgressions.

Most torturers believe in the righteousness of their cause, but there are always sick and sadistic freaks like Rodriguez who enjoy torturing others and do it for the hell of it. Rodriguez told CBS that, “We are the dark side,” with great self-satisfaction and pleasure.

All systems of torture, terror, and tyranny are religious in nature. Even so-called Western democracies have not escaped the poisons of propaganda, totalitarian power, and unthinking religious faith in government authorities.

Also, the errors of orthodox thinking and blind worship of authority still plague us. Terrorism and conspiracy theory have replaced blasphemy and heresy as words that are used to kill thought and make people obedient to absolute power. The innocent victims of the West’s war on terror are demonized as “terrorists,” and the vocal skeptics of the myths and narratives that underlie the war are marginalized as “conspiracy theorists.” Both terms are very convenient. They silence debate and excuse the U.S., British, and Israeli governments of their crimes against humanity.

When used with authority, language works like magic. Terence McKenna said that, “the world is made of language.” So the world is magic. And magic is more powerful than reality. Under the spell of government magic, people can be led to believe almost anything, no matter how absurd.

Related articles

• The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy (blacklistednews.com)
• The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy (revolutioninmedia.com)
• The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy (disquietreservations.blogspot.com)
• The case of the missing terrorists (intrepidreport.com)
• The Case of the Missing Terrorists (inpursuitofhappiness.wordpress.com)
• Prosecute the Leader of the CIA’s Torture Program (forcechange.com)
• Rendition victim takes his case to European court (mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.com)
• Rendition victim takes his case to European court (mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.in)
• No Secret Why CIA is Now Romanticizing ‘Harsh Interrogation’ Techniques (commondreams.org)

List of Catholic Hitler Quotes | Hitler’s Catholic Christianity

by PZ Myers

(I thought this was a perfect time to repost this list.)

Douglas Theobald passed along an interesting collection of quotes from that atheist evolutionist, Adolf Hitler. It’s particularly interesting that he outlawed atheist and freethought groups in 1933.

It’s a long list of quotes, so I’ll tuck it below the fold.

---

“The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”

[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

“I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.”

[Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, _The Voice of Destruction_, pp. 239-40]

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed.”

[Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich on April 12, 1922, countering a political opponent, Count Lerchenfeld, who opposed antisemitism on his personal Christian feelings. Published in "My New Order", quoted in Freethought Today April 1990]

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 46]

“What we have to fight for…is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.”

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp. 125]

“This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief.”

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.152]

“And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God.”

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.174]

“Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another… while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve.”

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, pp.309]

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”

[Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]

“Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.”

[Adolph Hitler, _Mein Kampf_, p. 171]

“I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 1]

“I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna’s destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 2]

“…the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party… was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“Political parties has nothing to do with religious problems, as long as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming of political parties.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes!

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3]

“If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 3, about the leader of the Christian Social movement]

“Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5]

“I had so often sung ‘Deutschland u:ber Alles’ and shouted ‘Heil’ at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5]

“Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 5]

“I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian- Social movement, especially in Lueger’s time achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 6]

“Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord’s grace smiled on His ungrateful children.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I]

“The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend on human beings… If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men of this earth… In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8]

“To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 8]

“The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late marriage alone lies the compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself as the ‘image’ of God.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10]

“Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth…Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10, echoing the Cultural Warfare rhetoric of the Religious Right]

“But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10]

“While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine– an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular– right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10]

“The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 10]

“Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11]

“The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties– and this against their own nation.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11]

“….the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 1, Chapter 11, precisely echoing Martin Luther's teachings]

“Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 1 Chapter 12]

“Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the ‘remaking’ of the Reich as they call it.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1]

“Of course, even the general designation ‘religious’ includes various basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, is the fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the recognition of basic religious views.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1]

“Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 1]

“A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself and the rest of the world.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created?”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“It doesn’t dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture- race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 2]

“Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

“For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? …Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas… it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

“The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God’s will, and actually fulfill God’s will, and not let God’s word be desecrated. For God’s will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord’s creation, the divine will.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10]

“In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], the most devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another.”

[Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 10]

“For this, to be sure, from the child’s primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: ‘Lord, make us free!’ is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: ‘Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!’

[Adolf Hitler's prayer, "Mein Kampf", Vol. 2 Chapter 13]

“The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life”

[Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933]

“ATHEIST HALL CONVERTED

Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers

Wireless to the New York Times.

BERLIN, May 13. – In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership.

The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had about 500,000 members …”

[New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree]

“I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.”

[Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany.]

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life….”

[Adolf Hitler, Berlin, February 1, 1933]

“Today Christians … stand at the head of [this country]… I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* during the past … (few) years.”

[The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872]

I can imagine a few objections that will be raised.

Objection! Hitler was no true Christian.
Reply: None of them are.

Objection! Christians don’t commit genocide.
Reply: Look up the Albigensians, review your history of the Crusades, and what about the Jews of Spain? Did Darwin coin the word “pogrom”?

Objection! Hitler was merely cynically manipulating the German people by using their beliefs in God.
Reply: I’d say something similar of his misuse of scientific theory.

Objection! You’re doing the same thing we are, only instead of blaming Darwinism, you’re blaming Christianity.
Reply: No, I think humans have done evil throughout their history, and are always willing to grab any convenient rationalization for their behavior, whether it’s science or religion or twinkies. Science doesn’t dictate morality, and it’s also rather clear that religion does a piss-poor job of it, too.

Objection! But evolution is a scientific theory that has more rhetorical and philosophical power than mere religion, and therefore must bear a greater weight of responsibility.
Reply: I don’t think the kind of people who blame mass murder on evolution will actually make this argument. Still, I’d just say what is, is. Science describes it and explains it, but doesn’t tell us what we should do with it.

Google:- Catholic Hitler, Catholic Crusader Adolf Hitler, Catholic Political Arm Nazism

Related articles

• James Madison Vs. Catholic Adolf Hitler on Separation of Church and State! (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• The Hitler Brand Is HUGE In India Right Now (buzzfeed.com)
• Hitler’s Strange Afterlife in India (3quarksdaily.com)
• Hitler’s Afterlife in India (thedailybeast.com)
• Catholic Hitler Praying | Rattles Former Warsaw Ghetto (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• Bachmann Compares Letter From Muslim Advocacy Group To Hitler’s Manifesto (thinkprogress.org)

Religious Sadists Condone Torture | Catholics and Co-Religious Rate Highest In Approving Torture

Reminder, of recent Polling indicating Catholics and Evangelicals highest in torture approval!

Poll: Most Evangelicals and Catholics Condone Torture in Some Instances

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Check out this fascinating new graphic analysis from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

It shows that most white evangelicals and Roman Catholics, along with most frequent churchgoers, say it’s OK to “sometimes” or “often” use torture on suspected terrorists. A slight majority of mainline Christians and religiously unaffiliated Americans, meanwhile, say torturing suspected terrorists could “rarely” or “never” be justified:

• Follow Dan Gilgoff on Twitter.
• Read more about religion.

Related Articles

• The Catholic Church’s Treatment of Nuns Is Polarizing and Alienating
• After bin Laden’s Death, al Qaeda’s Popularity Wanes
• Study: Critical Thinkers Less Likely to Believe in God

Related articles

• Roman Catholicism is a threat to freedom (choiceindying.com)
• Condemning the Catholic Church’s Attack on Americans’ Freedoms (promoteliberty.wordpress.com)
• Torture did not lead us to bin Laden (buffalonews.com)
• The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy (disquietreservations.blogspot.com)
• The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy (revolutioninmedia.com)
• The CIA’s Inquisition: How Terrorism And Conspiracy Theory Became The New Blasphemy And Heresy (blacklistednews.com)
• Torture Interrogations (bizgovsoc2.wordpress.com)
• Right Wing Catholic “Religious Liberty” Disguise For Religious Intolerance (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Conservative Myths About Socialism, Capitalism, and Who The ‘Job Creators’ Are

Deconstructing Conservative Myths About Socialism, Capitalism, and Who The ‘Job Creators’ Are

Via Silence Dogood

Image from http://drivetoacure.org/acne-myths-and-various-assumptions/

Conservatives have taken to a new spin on truth, by refashioning definitions of words and terms in order to provoke new connotations. Socialism is now defined as a government take over, Capitalism is now defined as patriotic, and the wealthy are now defined as job creators. But simply redefining these words will not change their true meaning, it is only myth making.

Socialism does not mean the abolition of a free market society, nor does Socialism call for a government takeover of all industry; that is Communism. Socialists acknowledge the limitation of a free market and believes that some industries should not be run for profit. Police protection, fire protection, prisons, education, health care, parks, electricity, water supplies, waste and sewage removal, and roadways are just a few examples of industries which should not be run for profit. The reasoning behind this belief is when these industries are operating for profit, not only will prices rise, but corresponding services would then be reserved only for those who can afford them. Or more succinctly, no one person should be able to profit over running services, in which everyone benefits from. One excellent example of Socialism in action is demonstrated in our banking industry. While most banks operate for the profits of their CEOs, credit unions are owned and operated by the people. The profits which are not imparted upon CEOs are reflected back to the customer in higher interest rates for investments and lower interest rates for loans. It may be important to point out that credit unions did not run the same risks as banks when our financial bubble burst, and thus did not need to request nor receive any TARP bailout money. Nor have the credit unions contributed to the faulty foreclosures as our banks have. Another example is found in health care. The free market creates for-profit businesses ranging from medications, medical testing, medical treatments, medical research, to hospitals. None of which have lowered the cost of health care through innovation or through competition. This is because the demand of which is a basic necessity, or in other words is non-negotiable. Like clean water, oil, and electricity, humans cannot survive without such products or services. The demand of which is a constant, therefore they are not subjected to the Keynes supply and demand curve. When prices go up, demand does not lessen beyond a certain threshold. Americans may forgo a pleasure trip to conserve on gasoline consumption, but their demand for gasoline to take them to and from work is non-negotiable. Where the free market brings economic ups and downs which effects everyone, Socialism believes that there is a limit on the protections a free market provides. And quite simply, some things should not be run for profit, especially at the expense of everyone else.

Capitalism is an economic term for the free market system which is structured upon the accumulation of money, where the means of production are privately owned and operates for profit. Capitalism is neither right nor wrong, it is simply an economic term. Nor is Capitalism patriotic! A system which encourages the accumulation of wealth does not salute a flag, nor is it loyal to a native country. This market system crosses state and national borders in order to provide larger profits for business owners. If labor costs are cheaper overseas, then it is capitalism which will drive businesses out of our country. If a company finds it cheaper to produce a dangerous product than it is to produce a safe one, it is capitalism which will produce the most profitable option without consideration of customer safety. Capitalism only seeks profits and will by nature migrate operations towards areas which promotes greater profits. Capitalism has no allegiance to any one country as it operates in a global economy. Again, capitalism has no allegiance with patriotism. Where would a business find themselves most profitable? Would they find a country with extremely lower labor costs to be more profitable for manufacturing than a country with higher labor costs? Would they find a lower taxed area more profitable than an area with high demand for their products? But most of all, wouldn’t it be more patriotic for an American business to spark demand in order to operate, manufacture and sell their goods or services inside America, as opposed to overseas?

The wealthy are not necessarily the job creators. Poor and desperate innovators have sparked many new business ventures despite their lack of wealth. Many small businesses began out of practically nothing, but only an idea executed inside of their garages. The fact of the matter is that neither wealth nor lower taxes create jobs; only demand creates jobs. This little tidbit of truth is lost in translation when the wealthy are deemed as “Job Creators”. This ploy is used to promote additional tax breaks for those who already have enough and while promoting cuts in public services on those who do not have enough. Another tidbit of truth which is diluted in this argument is the inequality of income between the workers and the owners. A manager typically earns 343 times more than an average employee. And while 88% of domestic profits go to corporate bank accounts and CEO bonuses, only 1% of these profits gets applied towards labor. The business owner shoulders no responsibility for producing any product or service. Rather the business owner invested their money (and in most cases time) into a business which is productive. Productivity is a result of the balance between the investors, the managers, and the workers. It is a symbiotic relationship, which many Americans cannot conceive of. For where would any business be without any one of these three elements? Despite conservative talking points, even the lowest of employees is an invaluable asset to a business. In a restaurant, an effective business owner knows that the dishwasher and busboys are just as important to their operation as their managers and customers. If you remove the dishwasher and/or busboys from the equation, the business suffers. Yet an effective manager can be absent from their responsibilities and the operation should not be sacrificed. So which employee should be valued more than the other, the laborer, the manager, or the investor? The answer is neither of the three. For without one, the other two would not have a business operate or a job to tend to. Yet the argument goes that only the wealthy create jobs. Without enough demand, even these jobs won’t last very long.

We should not tax our job creators in a time of economic recession. But we have misidentified exactly who these job creators are. When our recession is being prolonged out of a lack of demand, it is not the business owner who can create jobs. But rather it is the customers who spurn on demand who create jobs. The businesses who pocketed great sums of cash during our economic catastrophe will still be there when we come out of it without the need to create more jobs. But these businesses will find themselves with greater profits when demand picks up again, and that is what will create jobs. So let’s not overburden our true job creators, the customers. In order to spark higher demand, we must effect the largest target market we have at our disposal. It’s not the wealthy who can spark this demand; they only constitute up to 2% of our populace. Rather, we should focus our attention on the other 98% of our populace, our struggling middle class and poor. Henry Ford believed that his product meant nothing unless there were customers who were able to purchase it. In order to ensure his company’s success, he paid his laborers more than other businesses, so they may buy his cars. This enabled his employees to comfortably afford to buy Ford products. This sparked higher demand, which in turn produced higher job growth. Which led to Ford’s success story. Henry Ford did not believe in paying the least amount possible for labor, eliminating the minimal wage, or acquisitioning higher profits. Instead he realized the symbiosis between business and labor and between the business and its customer.

Related articles

• America’s “Job Creators” Are on Strike: Let’s Democratize Investment (talkingunion.wordpress.com)
• Opinion: Fables of Wealth (nytimes.com)
• Are Workers Exploited In The United States? (americanliberaltimes.com)
• Does Competition Equal Capitalism? NO (robertlindsay.wordpress.com)

The Brain Eating Cult of Mormonism

Everything You Need to Know About Mormonism

Pundits still haven’t figured out how to talk about Romney’s Mormon religion. Here’s everything you need to know.

Photo Credit: AFP

Liberal politicians and pundits, from Brian Schweitzer to Lawrence O’Donnell to Jon Stewart. have begun bringing up — and stumbling over — the subject of Mitt Romney’s religion. The following is an excerpt from Alex Pareene’s e-book,”The Rude Guide to Mitt.”It can be purchased at Amazon,Barnes & Noble, iTunes and the Sony Reader Store.

“The precipitous mountain pass that led the [Mormon] pioneers down into the Salt Lake Valley and still is the route of access from the east on Interstate 80, was first explored by my great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt,” Mitt Romney cheerfully writes in “Turnaround,” the airport bookstore leadership manual he wrote in 2004 while governor of Massachusetts.

“He had worked a road up along ‘Big Canyon Creek’ as an act of speculation when his crop failed in the summer of 1849. He charged tolls to prospectors making their way to California at the height of the Gold Rush and even had a Pony Express station commissioned along his pass.”

Romney doesn’t add — and why should he? — that Pratt was murdered in 1857, by the husband of a woman he took as one of his “plural wives.” (His ninth.) Pratt was in San Francisco proselytizing and promoting polygamy. The woman converted and eloped with Pratt, then pretended to renounce Mormonism in order to get her children from her parents, where her estranged husband had sent them. The husband tracked Pratt from California to Arkansas, and shot him dead when it became clear that he could not have Pratt jailed. This incident contributed to the general sense of apocalyptic paranoia among the Mormon community that led to the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which Mormon settlers — acting, according to some, on orders from Brigham Young — killed an entire wagon train of families on their way to California. There were rumors, before the Mormon militia attacked the wagon train, that Pratt’s killer was among the mostly wealthy Arkansans in the train. The Mormons attempted to blame the murder of children and women on Indians, though Mark Twain and others believed that the “Indians” were likely Mormons in war paint. (Archaeological evidence — dug up, embarrassingly, during preparations for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics — supports that theory.)

The massacre is the bloodiest and most disturbing moment in Mormon Church history, and also one of the rare moments in the 19th century when the Mormons were the perpetrators and not the victims of violence. Having been kicked out of everywhere they set up camp until they settled at their arid dead sea in Utah, they’ve retained the persecution complex, and some Mormons have a tendency to compare themselves to the Jews — members of the church even refer to non-­Mormons as “Gentiles.” (“I understood a little better what my Jewish friends encounter,” Romney writes in “Turnaround,” after receiving anti-­Mormon hate mail.)

The persecution was due to Victorian hysteria at their marital practices (which became quite bizarre even by our modern, degraded standards) and, to be fair, anger at their anti-­slavery stance, but it was also just because Mormons were weird. They were a strange band of bearded fanatics led by a charismatic autocrat who claimed to have a direct line to God. They practiced what appeared to be a form of polytheism — while professing to be Christians — in a deeply devout country. They stole dudes’ wives.

Polygamy is the reason George Romney was born in Mexico. The Romneys had been Mormons since way back. Carpenter Miles Archibald Romney, along with his family, converted in 1837, after hearing the story of Joseph Smith finding those golden plates in upstate New York. The Romneys moved to Smith’s Mormon community in Nauvoo, Ill., in 1841, and had Miles Park Romney in 1843. Miles Park became a builder, moved to Utah, married one woman, did mission work in England, returned to Utah and married another woman on orders from Brigham Young himself. He became quite prominent in the Mormon community, building Brigham Young’s gigantic home and helping to defeat a congressional anti-polygamy law. Romney and his three wives and various children were then sent to settle St. Johns, Ariz., as part of the church leadership’s plan to settle across the entire American West. St. Johns was not particularly welcoming to the Mormon newcomers, and after various threats to hang the lot of them, the Romney clan was told — ordered, actually — to try Mexico instead.

So they created a new Mormon colony, Colonia Juarez, and after some hardship, did reasonably well for themselves. Miles even took another wife seven years after the church officially “banned” the practice of plural marriage. Gaskell Romney, Miles Romney’s son with his first wife, Hannah Hood Hill, became a builder as well, and married one woman: Anna Amelia Pratt, granddaughter of Parley. They gave birth to George a few years before the Mexican Revolution forced the whole colony back to the United States.

Romney presents a fairly sanitized version of his family’s history in his book, quoting from a glowing biography of Miles Park Romney written by his son Thomas and not mentioning what actually brought the Romney clan to Mexico, but he is frank about the church’s history when asked about it. His great-­grandmother wrote extensively about how miserable her husband’s additional wives made her. “It was the great trial of the early Mormon pioneers,” Mitt told Lawrence Wright in 2002. But the church still grapples with the origins of polygamy, which became a tenet of the religion without much in the way of explanation. Wright:

Although Romney, like other Mormons, defends the practice of polygamy in the early days of the Church by pointing to a surplus of women in Utah, census reports for the time show roughly equal numbers of men and women. Church leaders were told to take multiple wives and “live the principle.” In religions where polygamy is still practiced — for example, in Islam — the number of wives is usually a reflection of the husband’s wealth; the currency behind Mormon polygamy, however, seems to have been spiritual. Only men are given the priesthood power of salvation, and through them women gain access to the celestial kingdom. Faithful women were naturally drawn to men who they believed could guarantee eternal life; in fact, Brigham Young authorized women to leave their husbands if they could find a man “with higher power and authority” than their present husband. Apparently, many of them did, as shown by the rate of divorce at the time.

Women, by the way, are still spiritually second-­class citizens in Mormonism, though the same is arguably true in most other Western religions, so maybe we shouldn’t harp on them too much.

– – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – –

The Mormonism of the 19th century bears little resemblance to Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is the impossibly cheery “Donny and Marie” variety, not the armed apocalyptic homesteading cult member variety. Tolstoy — referring to the scrappy/crazy 19th century version — called Mormonism “the American religion,” and he decidedly did not mean that as a compliment. But the modern church still deserves the title. It’s the Coca-­Cola religion, with a brand that denotes a sort of upbeat corporate Americanness, considered cheesy by elites but undeniably popular in pockets of the heartland and abroad.

It is an admirable transformation, frankly, for a religion founded very recently by a man who was likely both a liar and a lunatic, then led to prominence by a megalomaniac. Despite its transparently ridiculous dogma and sordid history of racism and murder and extremely unorthodox marital practices, Mormonism has come to thrive, thanks primarily to its ability to market and rapidly reinvent itself.

If the doctrine itself is a problem, stick around for a while and wait for it to change. If you think it unlikely, for example, that multiple advanced civilizations, descended from Israelite tribes, thrived and warred for hundreds of years in pre-Columbian upstate New York without leaving any archaeological evidence behind, the church now cheerfully entertains the possibility that the hill where Smith “found” his golden plates is one of two named “Cumorah,” with the other one — the one repeatedly referenced in the Book of Mormon — likely standing somewhere in Central America.

The racism underpinning the whole of the original Book of Mormon, which tells the story of a virtuous light-­skinned tribe warring with an evil dark-­skinned tribe (the “sons of Ham,” cursed with dark skin for eternity by God for their wickedness), was wiped away by decree in 1978. Significant changes to the hallowed “temple endowment” ceremony in 1990 got rid of the bit where women had to promise to be subservient to husbands. Even the “Temple Garments” (yes, the magic underpants) have gradually become easier and easier to conceal under “normal” clothes.

The modern Mormon aesthetic is deeply indebted to Walt Disney, but somehow even more square. Their grand temples look like variations on Cinderella’s castle. Their religious music sounds like Oscar‐nominated Alan Menken-­penned hymns. Their annual pageants — I highly recommend attending the Hill Cumorah pageant in upstate New York, in which formative stories from the Book of Mormon are acted out for an audience of thousands just beside the actual hill where Smith found the plates — are spectacular, involving massive casts and lavish costumes and thrilling theatrical effects, paired with the cheesiest imaginable dialogue and storytelling, like a vintage Disneyland animatronic “Ben-Hur.” (The sound system was easily the best I’ve ever heard at a large outdoor performance. Each line of risible King James pastiche narration was crystal clear from a hundred yards out.)

It’s very easy to make fun of a religion that literally takes communion in the form of Wonder bread, but the appeal of all that mandated clean-cut decency is also pretty easy to figure out. It pairs well, for example, with motivational business leadership books. In France, church leaders encouraged a young Mitt Romney to study “Think and Grow Rich,” the landmark self-­help book written in 1937 by motivational guru Napoleon Hill. Romney had his fellow missionaries read it, and told them to apply the lessons to their mission work.

There’s 30 minutes’ worth of Napoleon Hill babbling his claptrap on YouTube, and it’s well worth a look. Hill, enunciating in that classic “born before recorded sound was a thing” way, promises viewers a “master key” to anything their heart desires. Anything at all, so long as it can be written down on a piece of paper. Hill will show you the master key, he explains, when you are ready to understand it. “The master key consists of 17 principles, the first of which is definiteness of purpose,” and so on. (Hill never actually reveals his foolproof formula for personal success, because he prefers that the reader discover it for him- or herself.)

The book remains a bestseller, regularly reprinted. Using its lessons, millions of people have been told, anything the mind can conceive of can be achieved by a man. All you have to do is want it very badly. There was even a 1980s infomercial for the audiobook version, hosted by quarterback legend Fran Tarkenton, who made it to three Super Bowls (and lost each one).

This sort of “think yourself rich” bullshit, with its promise of a foolproof path to success made up of basic lessons in persistence and confidence combined with pseudo-­scientific hokum, is a great philosophical fit with Mormonism, which teaches that men are on a spiritual progression toward Godhood. And the fantastic thing about Mormonism is that you can apply the early 20th century version of “The Secret” — want something very, very badly and you will make it real with thought powers! — toward the amassing of material riches both here on Earth and after death, because Mormon doctrine says the believer will continue working and procreating in the afterlife. That may sound tedious and frankly hellish to you and me (though you do eventually get your own planet!), but this exaggerated re-conception of the Protestant work ethic is an essential tenet of Mormon culture and dogma. It helps that Mormonism is decidedly less squicky about rich people than traditional Christianity. (Again, Tolstoy really nailed it with that “American religion” thing.)

Stephen “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” Covey is a Mormon. So are past and present Harvard Business School deans Kim Clark and Clayton Christensen, the CEOs of Dell and JetBlue, and NBA executive Dave Checketts. Mitt Romney himself was named for J. Willard Marriott, founder of the Marriott hotel empire and a close friend of George Romney. (Something Mormon-connected brands tend to have in common is that they are fairly dull.)

Romney clearly internalized Napoleon Hill’s lessons: His “Turnaround” is full of of Hillisms translated through business school and management seminars. He reprints the list of “Guiding Principles” he placed on each Salt Lake City Olympics Organizing Committee employee’s desk, as if being explicitly told to “Seek ‘Gold Medal’ performances in your own job” and “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is what really turned those Olympics around following the bid scandal.

That’s “what kind of Mormon” Mitt Romney is: the Chamber of Commerce/Fortune 500 kind, making a fortune but not too ostentatious about it, and always starting a meeting with a joke.

He’s by no means a fundamentalist, and as a non-­Utah Mormon, he comes from a less insular and conservative environment than many of those raised in the church’s stronghold. But young Mitt Romney, who admits to craving caffeinated sodas as a child, was sent to France during great political and cultural upheaval, and he was repulsed by student demonstrations and mass unrest. His response was to become much more Mormon — much more respectful of order and authority, much more “gosh” and “gee willikers.” More Brigham Young than Stanford.

His time at Brigham Young was Romney’s first experience living in Utah, which Mormons run as a sort of soft theocracy. Salt Lake City has a slim non-­Mormon majority, but the power rests in the heavily Mormon state government. Public schools feature Mormon seminaries, usually connected or across the street, and they give an hour a day to (wink-­wink) “released time.” (They also ban school events on Monday nights, which is church-­mandated family time.) Salt Lake City has faced ACLU lawsuits for selling public areas to the church, which then restricts speech in the areas. Non-­Mormons can face soft employment and housing discrimination, and what they do with their free time is … heavily restricted by the state.

Even after Gov. Jon Huntsman significantly relaxed the liquor laws in 2009, the regulations remain restrictive (last June, the state banned drink specials) and often bizarre. The New York Times reported on the current cumbersome state of Utah’s liquor laws in the summer of 2011. In restaurants, patrons can’t get drinks without ordering food, and all alcohol — liquor, beer or wine — must be hidden from view. You’re no longer limited to nothing but 3.2 percent beer, but getting a cocktail can be complex:

Stiff drinks and doubles are illegal in Utah. Bars and restaurants must use meters on their liquor bottles to make sure they do not pour more than 1.5 ounces at a time. Other liquors can be added to cocktails in lesser amounts, not to exceed 2.5 ounces of liquor in a drink, as long as they are poured from bottles clearly marked “flavoring.”

It is illegal to stiffen a drink with a second shot: under the law a drinker can order a vodka and tonic with a shot of whiskey on the side, but not a vodka tonic with a shot of vodka on the side.

Romney writes in “Turnaround” of being unprepared for a heated local debate over alcohol sales at his Salt Lake Olympics. It takes a secular newspaperman to explain to him that alcohol debates in Utah are actually about the frustrations of liberal religious minorities living under conservative religious rule, and Romney still doesn’t entirely get it:

“[My church's] opposition to liberal alcohol laws, however, had nothing to do with a desire to impose the religion on others. In fact, the Church’s members abstain from coffee and tobacco, as well as alcohol and the Church actually serves coffee in the hotel it owns … No, their issue with liberalizing alcohol regulations derives from the same social consequences recognized in other nations and communities: concern about drunk driving and alcoholism.”

That’s the church’s line, almost to the letter, and Romney’s endorsement of it I’m sure means that he has a similarly tolerant understanding of Saudi Arabian laws banning women drivers. (It’s a public safety thing! They’re such bad drivers!)

– – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – — – –

Unlike a lot of other Mormons in the 1960s and 1970s, Romney never challenged his church on its positions on its racist doctrines, which essentially banned blacks from membership in the church.

From David Kirkpatrick, in the Times:

“I hoped that the time would come when the leaders of the church would receive the inspiration to change the policy,” Mr. Romney said. When he heard over a car radio in 1978 that the church would offer blacks full membership, he said, he pulled over and cried.

But until then, he deferred to church leaders, he said. “The way things are achieved in my church, as I believe in other great faiths, is through inspiration from God and not through protests and letters to the editor.”

Of course, Romney doesn’t always hew to the church line. Mitt broke with his church’s teachings and the position of most of his fellow Mormons when he … decided to oppose stem cell research in order to position himself for a Republican presidential run back when that was the most pressing national issue for religious conservatives.

The church is generally pro–­stem cell research — it believes that the “soul” enters the body some time after conception, and that no souls are involved in the cultivation of embryos in a lab. Romney was initially strongly pro–­stem cell research, purposefully staking out a position to the left of President Bush while running for governor of Massachusetts. But according to Romney in 2007, a 2004 conversation with a stem cell researcher led him to change his position on the research and even on abortion. This Romney says the scientist told him that he “kills” embryos after 14 days (the scientist in question obviously disputes using the word “kill”) and that so horrified Romney (“it hit me very hard that we had so cheapened the value of human life in a Roe v. Wade environment”) that he moved to criminalize research he’d strongly supported two years earlier, and vetoed a bill allowing for research on human eggs.

“I applaud medical discovery and the pursuit of cures for debilitating diseases,” Romney writes in the 2007 prologue to the paperback edition of his 2004 book on turning around the Olympics, “but I saw clearly where this legislation would take the nation: to the ‘brave new world’ that Aldous Huxley warned about, with rows upon rows of test tubes containing human embryos grown and harvested for science.”

The bill passed despite his veto, and now Massachusetts is a dystopian drug-­addled nightmare state keeping its populace cowed with the superficial satisfactions of sex and consumption.

Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene

Related articles

• Everything You Need to Know About Mormonism (alternet.org)
• The Book of Mitt (salon.com)
• US election 2012: Mitt Romney’s Mormonism thrust back into spotlight (telegraph.co.uk)
• Now that Romney is invoking Mormonism to woo voters, isn’t it time we had a frank discussion about Mormonism? (americablog.com)
• Richard Mouw, Evangelical Leader, Says Engaging Mormons Isn’t Just About Being Nice (huffingtonpost.com)
• Pat Robertson: Vote Romney Because ‘You Don’t Have Jesus Running’ (crooksandliars.com)
• Jon Stewart Blasts Critics For Going After Mitt Romney’s Mormonism (mediaite.com)

Non-Review Review: The Avengers (aka Avengers Assemble)

Non-Review Review: The Avengers (aka Avengers Assemble)

Via Darren

The Avengers has a lot of geeky charm to it – the sort of giddy “this is so cool!” spectacle that appeals to the popcorn-munching child in each of us. That’s more than enough help it coast through a somewhat muddled first act, through a stronger second act and into a truly awesome finale. I think that the carefully choreographed large-scale action sequence that caps the film off might be worth a ticket alone. While there seem to be some very fundamental problem juggling a cast this large in a movie that technically a sequel to at least four films, Joss Whedon knows his audience well enough to ensure that most of the individual moments are satisfying, even if the overall film feels a tad uneven.

Three of a kind…

I think it’s worth reflecting on what an interesting accomplishment The Avengers actually is. Whatever you might think about big-budget franchise films, the structure of Marvel’s super hero films has been incredibly interesting. The movie follows four different character arcs from five different films. While there was a fairly minimal overlap with each other in terms of basic plotting, they all lead it to this single film. Most franchises tend to develop in a logical progression one film at a time, with threads flowing from one to the next. Instead, plot points, characters, macguffins and dynamics all pour towards The Avengers from all possible angles.

It’s certainly daunting, and I can’t imagine that it was an easy task for Whedon or fellow writer Zak Penn to smooth each of those streams into one gigantic pool of film footage. There’s no getting around it: The Avengers isn’t perfect. There are significant flaws, especially during the first act when Whedon is tasked with re-introducing all these characters and plot points from earlier films to audiences who may have seen some, but not all, of the previous films.

In the Nick of time…

To be fair to Whedon, every character gets a fair share of lovely moments. Each member of the ensemble is effectively characterised. I had worried, based on the trailers and the towering financial success of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, that this would essential by Iron Man & His Amazing Friends, but it isn’t at all. There are some problems with this approach evident early in the film - at times, the script can’t seem to decide if it’s introducing or reintroducing characters to the audience.

On the one hand, Captain America gets a whole twenty-second flashback encapsulation of his film including spliced footage. On the other, Thor’s back story is only fleetingly and obliquely referenced and the script makes the slyest possible references to the last Hulk film. In fact, all of those references seem to gently prod the studio, affectionately mocking the final cut and using a deleted scene as an emotional hook.

A smashing time…

Still, Whedon is sure to give each character at least one or two impressive character moments or telling interactions with one another, and uses each member of his ensemble effectively in the finale. This is an understandable approach, and probably the fairest to all involved, but it has problems. Some of these are practical – as it seems to take Thor a few hours to bother to pick up his hammer while we catch up with everybody else - but some are fundamental.

The most obvious is that the movie lacks a viewpoint character. Towards the start of the film, it looks like we might be watching Steve Rogers adjust to the modern world packed with men in metallic suits, green rage monsters or ancient gods. When Nick Fury arrives with a dossier, Steve asks, “Trying to put me back in the world?”As the movie starts, it seems like Steve’s confusion about the complexities of modern living might make him a focal point for reconciling the rather different bunches of characters and backgrounds.

Not a Thor loser…

However, he’s swept aside pretty quickly, and put on an even keel with Iron Man and Thor. Of course, Thor doesn’t get the smoothest introduction at all. He literally drops out of the sky – apparently sent by his father, despite the fact that Branagh’s Thor apparently saw Asgard permanently separated from Earth. Thor’s dialogue with Loki quick handwaves that plot point, and it also brushes over something that worked rather well in their own film. We discover that Thor learned about his brother’s adoption off-screen, and any impact this has on their relationship is downplayed.

Indeed, the mythos established in Thor was always going to be the toughest to tie into The Avengers. Iron Man is just a dude in a suit. Captain America is a soldier on steroids. The Hulk is a big green rage monster created by a science experiment gone wrong. Thor is… an alien who is actually a god. You’d imagine that would raise a few eyebrows among the superhero types. Especially since Thor’s brother Loki is given the task of playing the villain in this movie. However, Whedon seems to just sort of gloss over that quite quickly, with Iron Man dismissing him as “Shakespeare in the park.” Cap gets a nice character-defining line (“there’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m fairly sure he doesn’t dress like that”), but you’d expect a bit more.

Don’t you know he’s Loki?

It’s a bit of a shame, because Tom Hiddleston’s Loki was perhaps the most compelling antagonist in the entire series of Marvel movies, the one with the most tragic motivations and most relatable ambitions – not necessarily to conquer worlds, but to prove himself worthy of his father’s love. Here, there’s none of that. Though Hiddleston is as graceful as ever, Loki could really be any character with any motivation. There’s no sense that he’s plotting to destroy the planet for any reason other than for the sake of evil.

His character motivation seems to be that he hates freedom. While that does fit with the mind control schtick (or, literally, stick) that he’s been given, it feels a bit strange. After all, we’ve already had a film featuring one of the team battling a character who hated freedom (and was obsessed with the same cosmic artifact), so surely it would have made sense to bring back that delightfully one-dimensional red-faced Nazi. There are a few hints that Loki is actually being coerced into orchestrating this invasion, but the angle is never developed – as it might have made for a more powerful scene with his brother.

Of gods and super-men…

That’s not to dismiss the work that Hiddleston does here. Like the rest of the cast, he gives it his all. However, Loki worked as one of the best four-colour villains brought to the big screen because Hiddleston found an unlikely humanity in his character. Unlike the other baddies in the other Marvel films, you actually understood why Loki did what he did, rather than chalking it up to “he’s insane” or “it’s the third act and we need a fight sequence.”

Hugo Weaving did that sort of shallow cackling foe quite well, as did Jeff Bridges, but it feels like a bit of a waste of Hiddleston’s talents – if only because the actor seems intent on keeping his performance dignified and restrained rather than chewing through the scenery. In fact, it seems like Loki’s only really included in order to reference the original comics – Loki was, after all, the first villain to face the team, and did unite the characters in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s Avengers #1.

You just can’t get good staff these days…

His actions here aren’t really too well-planned-out, save to fulfil the same plot functions. In many ways, Whedon does feel a little too attached to his source material. We get a bizarre mind-control plot that exists only to reference one character’s brief comic-book-history as a villain. We get a costume for Captain America that is far too bright, although it does look much better when he takes off his mask. Part of me wonders why they couldn’t keep his costume from Captain America: The First Avenger.

On the other hand, Whedon’s film is powered by a geeky sense of fun, with everything else coming second to that. It causes the biggest problems early on, as he struggles to get the pieces in place. (Given how much foreshadowing was incorporated into earlier films, I’m amazed at how much heavy lifting The Avengers has to do.) Once he gets to the point where he can actually play with his toys, it becomes a lot more fun.

Keeping Coul under pressure…

Whedon is clearly overjoyed to be working with these icons, and it bleeds through into enthusiasm on screen, with even the awesome Agent Coulson awkwardly geeking out about Captain America. “I was watching you while you were sleeping,” he suggests. Realising how awkward that sounds, he rephrases, “I meant I was with you when you were unconscious.” Coulson even has a set of Captain America trading cards in near mint condition (“boxed a bit around the edges”), and it’s not too difficult to imagine Whedon tackling his subjects with similar affection.

During the second act, things begin to click together. In particular, we start to detect the Whedon-esque touches that must have been sacrificed from the first act to keep everything running relatively tight. There is an obscenely geeky pleasure in seeing these toys playing together in the same sandbox, watching Chris Evan’s old fogey butting heads with Robert Downey Jr.’s arrogant and ego-centric playboy, or Chris Hemsworth’s Thor making casual remarks from outside everybody’s frame of reference. (“I got that one!” Cap declares of one pop culture reference, desperate to prove he’s not thatout of touch, while Thor looks confused.)

Bringing the hammer down…

It seems like a bit of a spoiler to even mention it, but Whedon does use a few of the storytelling tricks and tropes that he’s picked up from years working in the industry. It’s easy to deride some of these tricks as cheap emotional manipulation, but I generally think that Whedon uses them because they work so well. There are moments in the second act where the gigantic science-fiction-fantasy-superhero mish-mash suddenly becomes decidedly real, and Whedon uses these tricks of the trade to anchor it somewhat, to keep the story relatively human.

While the first act has serious problems, and the second act represents a considerable improvement, the final action sequence is something to behold. It might be worth the price of a ticket on its own, to be frank. Whedon effortlessly juggles even primary character each getting a moment or several to shine. (That’s Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury for those keeping score.)

They’ve got him under Loki and key…

To be fair, Marvel’s movies have traditionally had a bit of bother with their third acts, tying everything down to a massive fight, but Whedon manages to produce the year’s best action sequence. Ironically, the only movie released so far this year that might have a more energetic third act is Cabin in the Woods, which Whedon co-wrote. In an era where it seems that Hollywood has forgotten how to make an action climax work, largely thanks to Michael Bay’s work on Transformers, it’s strangely refreshing.

There’s no confusing quick cutting, no jumping back and forth. Rather than intercutting seven action sequences, Whedon cleverly queues them up. It works remarkably well, because it allows each little sequence to flow before moving on to the next one. Iron Man has a problem. Iron Man and Hawkeye deal with that problem. Thor has a problem. Thor deals with that problem. Captain America spots a bad guy. Captain America deals with that bad guy. It’s an efficient way of managing a final confrontation, and Whedon deserves credit for his work here.

Suits you, sir…

Even before we reach that finale, there are nice moments. There’s a rather enthusiastic brawl between Thor and the Hulk which stands out as one of the few times the Hulk has really worked in live action. Whedon takes fiendish delight in throwing his cast through objects (walls, trees, conveniently stacked crates) and it works as visual shorthand – there’s a genuine sense of the level of power going on here. It is pure and unashamed geekery, but there’s nothing wrong with that.

Whedon’s Hulk deserves special mention, given how much trouble the character has proven to be in the past. I love The Incredible Hulk far more than most, but I think that the creature himself was still awkwardly handled. I still think the decision to recast the role of Bruce Banner was a mistake.

The Hulk gets Ruffalized…

Ed Norton looks like a nerdy guy carrying a shedload of deep-rooted personal issues and might have a very nasty side underneath his cold exterior. Mark Ruffalo, on the other hand, looks like he might pinch the last biscuit in the packet on a day he’s feeling especially bold. While Banner gets considerable focus here, perhaps to help mitigate against the multiple failed movies, Ruffalo lacks a certain edge.

It is worth noting, though, that Whedon and Penn’s script seems to go out of its way to mock the somewhat troubled final cut of Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk. When Banner claims to have discovered the secret to managing “the other guy”, Black Widow mocks him, “What’s your secret? Yoga?” The final opening sequence of Leterrier’s Hulk (which I quite liked) saw Banner using regulating breathing exercises and other techniques to manage stress.

Back in black…

Later on, in a tense a moment, Banner confesses to attempting suicide as a means of resolving his problems - a reference to the rather powerful deleted opening sequence that was cut from the film against Norton’s vocal objections. By the way, this isn’t the time, but I would buy the hell out of a “Writer’s Cut” of The Incredible Hulk. C’mon Marvel, you know you want my money.

However, the Hulk himself is something else, when he finally breaks out. I suspect it’s a combination of the visual effects used and the manner that Whedon treats the creature. The Hulk truly is the strongest there is. It’s the best portrayal of the green goliath I have ever seen. Grafting Ruffalo’s face on to the monster makes him look almost pathetic, illustrating that Banner is trapped inside, while Whedon lets rip in some truly impressive action sequences. The Hulk and Thor wrestling atop an alien monster heading to Grand Central Station is a wonderful moment, as is Loki’s defiant last stand against the monster.

Sliding into gear…

Aside from the four leads, Whedon does a solid job with his impressive supporting cast. Finally, Samuel L. Jackson is allowed to do something other than foreshadow a movie coming several years down the line, and Fury works remarkably well as a manipulator. There’s a welcome hint of ambiguity to how the character manages his band of heroes, even if we never doubt that Fury is trying to assure the best possible outcome. While I wouldn’t have been too bothered about a Nick Fury solo film before, I would love to see him handle some problems without the spandex crowd cramping his style.

The other character who gets a lot of development, surprisingly given the movie if not given the director, is the Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johannson. It’s become a cliché to talk about Whedon writing strong female characters, especially because it gives so many other writers a pass for doing the opposite, but the importance of the Black Widow to the film comes as quite a welcome surprise given the fact that there are so few successful superheroine films. Okay, there isn’t enough room for a full arc, but Whedon manages to give her some decent characterisation – hinting at a shady past, and at a more human side beneath her cold exterior. It’s telling that she gets to check off quite a few important plot points – dealing with Loki, Barton and the portal.

Human S.H.I.E.L.D…

There’s a lot to like, but there are some fundamental problems. For example, Whedon seems to have a bit of difficulty with his central theme. I know Whedon has an affection for old-fashioned superheroics, but is he trying to make a comment on post-9/11 America. As Captain America struggles to keep up with all the changes, Nick Fury notes, “We’ve made some mistakes along the way. Especially recently.” Loki seems to conspire with terrorists. Fury engages, without qualm, in the sort of super-surveillance that gave Batman pause in The Dark Knight.

In contrast, Whedon’s superheroes seem to reject such ambiguities and uncertainties, seeming refreshingly heroic in a morally complex world. Even the Hulk doesn’t seem that conflicted or tormented any more (“Hulk,” Cap commands, “Smash!”) while Tony Stark is genuinely committed to changing the world through green energy and seems to have found a stable relationship with a woman he loves. However, I’m not sure if Whedon’s romanticism is undermined by the fact that these unambiguous heroes still have close ties to more morally dubious black ops agents, and are still lied to and manipulated by Fury even afterthey’ve called him out on it.

Ironing out some kinks…

In fairness, Whedon isn’t too heavy-handed, and maybe that’s a good thing. He accepts that these are inherently silly and childish constructs. “Do not touch me,” Thor insists during the mandatory “two heroes fight” sequence. “Then don’t take my stuff,” Iron Man responds, and the most epic playground scrap ever commences, Hell, Whedon at one point seems to even answer the question of what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, as Thor’s Hammer and Cap’s Shield collide.

Sometimes it seems tough for creators and fans to concede the somewhat shallow and playful nature of these archetypes – that they are ultimately toys in a sandbox – and it takes considerable skill for a writer to acknowledge that while still treating them with respect and skill. Whedon does both remarkably well, and it’s clear that he loves having the opportunity to play with these toys without taking any of them too seriously.

Stripped for action…

The Avengers is a flawed film, but it has enough charm to carry it through a somewhat rocky first act. From there, it just climbs, reaching the most impressive superhero action sequence I think I’ve ever seen. It’s a mess of a film, but it’s a glorious and enjoyable and occasionally awesome mess of a film.

Related articles

• Joss Whedon Wants To Add More Female Superheroes To ‘The Avengers 2′ (screencrave.com)
• Hey, That’s My Cape! – The Women-Friendly AVENGERS (newsarama.com)
• The Avengers by Joss Whedon (hkauteur.wordpress.com)
• My Opinion on The Avengers (thebambooshoots.com)
• The Avengers (rhsapinoso.wordpress.com)
• The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012) (faircomments.wordpress.com)
• Excuse Us While We Lose Our Minds. A Spoiler Review of The Avengers (tor.com)
• Why Joss Whedon Gets Superheroes, And Marc Webb (Seemingly) Doesn’t (screenphiles.com)
• Review: The Avengers (tvquarks.wordpress.com)
• ‘Avengers’ Assemble… on TV! The Hulk Gets an ABC Series (hollywood.com)
• Film Review: Avengers Assemble (nataliestendall.com)
• Avengers Assemble (2012) (screen150.wordpress.com)
• How Joss Whedon and Tony Stark brought Marvel’s The Avengers Full Circle (comicbookherald.com)
• Avengers Assemble (thefword.org.uk)
• Movie Review: The Avengers (dawn.com)
• B’s Review: The Avengers have Assembled for a Marvel-ous Cinematic Experience (hypethemovies.wordpress.com)
• EXCLUSIVE: Guardians of the Galaxy Return In “Avengers Assemble” (comicbookresources.com)
• Avengers Assemble: Film Review (professorlocs.typepad.com)

Inside the Crazy Cult of Ayn Rand

A Look Inside the Crazy Cult of Ayn Rand

Here’s a great read about the Ayn Rand cult which discusses not just the pernicious effect of its adolescent philosophy but the soap opera of Rand’s personal life — perfectly illuminating the bad Romance novel character of the books:

While Greenspan (tagged “A.G.” by Rand) was the most famous name that would emerge from Rand’s Collective, the second most well-known name to emerge from the Collective was Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist, author and “self-esteem” advocate. Before he was Nathaniel Branden, he was Nathan Blumenthal, a 14-year-old who read Rand’s The Fountainhead again and again. He later would say, “I felt hypnotized.” He describes how Rand gave him a sense that he could be powerful, that he could be a hero. He wrote one letter to his idol Rand, then a second. To his amazement, she telephoned him, and at age 20, Nathan received an invitation to Ayn Rand’s home. Shortly after, Nathan Blumenthal announced to the world that he was incorporating Rand in his new name: Nathaniel Branden. And in 1955, with Rand approaching her 50th birthday and Branden his 25th, and both in dissatisfying marriages, Ayn bedded Nathaniel.

What followed sounds straight out of Hollywood, but Rand was straight out of Hollywood, having worked for Cecil B. DeMille. Rand convened a meeting with Nathaniel, his wife Barbara (also a Collective member), and Rand’s own husband Frank. To Branden’s astonishment, Rand convinced both spouses that a time-structured affair—she and Branden were to have one afternoon and one evening a week together—was “reasonable.” Within the Collective, Rand is purported to have never lost an argument. On his trysts at Rand’s New York City apartment, Branden would sometimes shake hands with Frank before he exited. Later, all discovered that Rand’s sweet but passive husband would leave for a bar, where he began his self-destructive affair with alcohol.

By 1964, the 34-year-old Nathaniel Branden had grown tired of the now 59-year-old Ayn Rand. Still sexually dissatisfied in his marriage to Barbara and afraid to end his affair with Rand, Branden began sleeping with a married 24-year-old model, Patrecia Scott. Rand, now “the woman scorned,” called Branden to appear before the Collective, whose nickname had by now lost its irony for both Barbara and Branden. Rand’s justice was swift. She humiliated Branden and then put a curse on him: “If you have one ounce of morality left in you, an ounce of psychological health—you’ll be impotent for the next twenty years! And if you achieve potency sooner, you’ll know it’s a sign of still worse moral degradation!”

This is the muse for many of the GOP leaders who pronounce themselves social conservatives.

The important point in all that is the one in which the 14 year old Nathan says that he was “hypnotized” and that Rand’s novels made him feel like a hero. That’s the key to Rand’s influence: the people who organize their lives around Rand’s overwrought philosophy are emotional adolescents and the pretense of “rationality” in her books is little more than a justification for youthful narcissism. Her own life bears this out as does the application of Randism to actual policy.

What’s frightening about all this is the number of leaders who count themselves as adherents. It’s common for narcissists to make it to the top of the food chain, but empowering this peculiar brand is akin to giving a 15 year old a Ferrari and a gun and taking off for the week-end. These are not people you want to put in charge of anything.

By Digby | Sourced from Hullabaloo

Related articles

• Watch Zombie Ayn Rand Eat the Brains of College Students (crooksandliars.com)
• Watch Republicans Argue About Ayn Rand (slog.thestranger.com)
• Thoughts On Ayn Rand For Mother’s Day (alan.com)
• Paul Ryan Challenged at Town Hall to Explain About-Face on Ayn Rand (crooksandliars.com)
• Watch in horror as zombie Ayn Rand eats Rachel Maddow’s brains (rawstory.com)
• Ayn Rand Fanboy Paul Ryan Now Says He Rejects Ayn Rand’s Philosphy (crooksandliars.com)
• Rep. Paul Ryan: Ayn Rand’s philosophy ‘completely antithetical to mine’ (rawstory.com)
• Paul Ryan Challenged By Town Hall Constituents Over Previous Praise Of Ayn Rand (thinkprogress.org)

Judeo-Fascist Religious Cultists Torch Israeli Flag

Ultra-Orthodox Torch Israeli Flag in Belgium Bonfire

[Link: www.timesofisrael.com...]

Dozens of haredi Orthodox schoolchildren participated in a Lag b’Omer bonfire in Antwerp that featured the burning of an Israeli flag.

An eyewitness who photographed the event on May 10 said the boys attended a cheder of the Satmar community — an anti-Zionist Chasidic stream of approximately 150,000 adherents worldwide.

The picture, taken in an interior courtyard, shows a middle-aged man burning a handmade Israeli flag as some 30 boys watch.

“This is one of the first times we have seen this sort of thing in recent years,” Michael Freilich, editor in chief of Belgium’s leading Jewish publication, Joods Actueel, told JTA.

Related articles

• Ultra-Orthodox torch Israeli flag in Belgium bonfire (timesofisrael.com)
• Haredi Orthodox burn Israeli flag in Antwerp (jta.org)
• Haredi Kid’s Paper Excludes Israeli Flag (failedmessiah.typepad.com)
• Fringe ultra-Orthodox group burns Israeli flags to protest Independence Day (timesofisrael.com)
• Fearing backlash, Beit Shemesh lowers flag in ultra-Orthodox areas ahead of Independence Day (haaretz.com)

The Religio-Fascist Takeover of the Republican Party

Is The Republican Party Becoming Fascist?

By Stephen D. Foster Jr.

Image from oldamericancentury.org

Republicans have been busy since they took control of the House of Representatives in 2011. Busy alienating every single group of people they can think of, except themselves. The United States is being transformed into a fascist state before our eyes and now is the time we must fight back and turn this evil tide.

Instead of focusing on jobs and the economy like they were elected to do, Republicans have used the excuse of budget crises whether real or not, to take rights away from us. In the 1920′s and 1930′s, fascists in Europe used economic crises to gain power and that is exactly what Republicans are doing now. Using the recession as an excuse to create a police state. Let’s examine how Republicans are frighteningly similar to fascists.

Fascism is the ultimate manifestation of social change and moral revolution, and glorifies nationalism. Sound familiar? It should. Republicans are all about culture wars and preach morality and how great America is. Fascists, like Republicans today, reject democracy and liberalism. Many Republicans called for violently overthrowing the government if the 2010 midterm elections didn’t go their way and have viciously attacked liberalism. Fascists also reject internationalism and pacifism and support militarism and war. Republicans have been calling for the United States to pull out of the United Nations since the 1950′s and have since 2001, been the party of war as evidenced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the calls to attack Iran, North Korea, and most recently Libya. Fascists also promote heroism, vitalism and violence. Ever notice how Republicans promote themselves by chopping wood or firing guns or some other “manly” activity? They are trying to prove how tough they are. And the examples of violence are aplenty. Just look at the shooting in Arizona and the calls to shoot liberals in the forehead and the threats of “second amendment remedies” among many others. Republicans have ALL of these traits. Now let’s examine how fascists and Republicans agree on the issues.

As we all know, Republicans claim to be the party of family values. This is the exact stance of fascists as well. Fascists, like Republicans, believe that a woman’s role is confined to the home as a mother. In Italy, the fascists banned literature on birth control and increased penalties for abortion in 1926, declaring both crimes against the state. Fascists even pushed policies designed to reduce the number of women in the workforce. Republicans are attempting to do all of these things. They have relentlessly railed against birth control, and have pushed their idea of abstinence as if they have always practiced it themselves. Hypocrites. They are attempting to ban abortion, considering laws to legalize the killing of abortion providers and laws that destroy Planned Parenthood and allow hospitals to let women die rather than give her a life saving abortion. Republicans are also assaulting unions that represent professions held by mostly women such as nurses and education and have been highly critical of single mothers who work.

Speaking of education, Republicans and fascists have that in common too.
Fascist states pursued policies of social indoctrination through propaganda in education and the media and seek to regulate the production of educational and media materials. We see Republicans doing this every day. They have their own news network that uses blatant lies and misinformation to paint liberalism as evil. Fox News is directly responsible for spreading hate and fear on behalf of the Republican Party and even promotes Republican candidates with total disregard to acceptable journalism ethics. Republicans have criticized journalists for asking tough questions and have called for laws to change the mainstream media. Many Republicans are against Freedom of the Press and have even detained journalists against their will for asking questions. Then there is the GOP stance on education. Their attempts to destroy public education is nothing more than an effort to create private schools designed to do their ideological bidding. Private schools can deny an education to anyone and can discriminately hire any teacher they wish which means an army of conservative teachers that will only teach the Republican ideology and their view of history. Fascists created their systems of education to glorify their movement and sought to inform students of its historical and political importance to the nation. It attempted to purge ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the fascist movement. Republicans are also doing this. Take Texas and the South for instance. In those Republican controlled areas, the Confederacy is being glorified and Joe McCarthy is being portrayed as heroic. The Civil Rights movement is being largely ignored and the Founding Fathers are being transformed into Republicans that agree with everything the Republicans are doing today. They are trying to portray the founders as Christians that wanted Christianity to rule the state. Republicans are also trying to abolish the Department of Education and are trying to slash education spending to a bare minimum. Republicans and fascists hate the well educated because they want the people to be stupid in order to manipulate them. Fascism tends to be anti-intellectual and so does the Republican Party.

Another major aspect of fascism is its relationship with corporations. In 1925 the Fascist regime in Italy created a corporatist economic system. In theory, Fascist Corporatism is supposed to give unions a voice but in practice, that’s not what it did in Italy and Germany in the 1930′s. The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers’ strikes and lock-outs. Even Hitler banned unions. This is similar to how corporations were before America declared its independence. At that time, corporations such as the Massachusetts Bay Company, controlled entire colonies. The Founding Fathers hated this practice so much they rebelled against it and set many restrictions against the corporate world they abhorred so much. Republicans are attempting to reintroduce this idea that corporations should run states and the government. They’ve already called for privatizing policemen and the military and they already allow the Koch brothers to call the shots. It won’t be long before they introduce corporatism. Marxists accuse fascism of being a capitalist tyranny that attempts to make conservative reaction popular to the working class but in practice represses the working class. Even Lenin claimed that “Fascism is capitalism in decay.” Fascists dismantled working-class organizations, significantly reduced wages in certain areas, abolished taxes on inheritance and war profits. Republicans seek to do ALL of these things. They have called for an end to the minimum wage, are ending union rights state by state, most recently in Wisconsin where Republicans slammed through an anti-union bill illegally, and seek to destroy any and all corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy.

Another aspect shared by fascists and Republicans is their hatred of homosexuals and people who are different. Just as fascists banned homosexuality in 1931 and hated certain groups like gypsies and Jews, Republicans seek to make homosexuality illegal and have made it clear that they intend to persecute those they feel are inferior such as Muslims, African-Americans, hispanics, and other ethnic groups. The current hearings in Congress specifically targeting Muslims is sufficient proof of that, not to mention their constant racial attacks on President Obama and the laws being passed against hispanics in Arizona.

Another major aspect of fascism that Republicans share is the fixing of elections. If the 2000 Election isn’t enough to convince you of fraudulent elections then also consider these current attempts to subvert democracy. Republicans in New Hampshire are pushing bills that would keep college students from voting. One bill would require a students parents live in the state and another would ban same day registration. Why? Because the youth come out to vote for liberals. This is the reason Republicans are out to destroy unions too, since unions support Democrats in elections most of the time. One Tea Party leader has already suggested a bill that would only allow people with property to vote. Even the voting rights of women are being threatened. These are blatant attempts to subvert Democracy and destroy political opponents. These are things that fascists do.

Here is something else that Republicans and fascists have in common: death panels. In Arizona, Republicans have already decided the fates of 98 people by taking their names off the transplant lists in an effort to save money. Never mind the fact that the federal government has sent funds to cover these people. The Republican fascists in Arizona are too busy spending that cash on private prisons so they can send suspected illegal immigrants to them. Death panels are expected to spread to other Republican controlled states such as Texas and Mississippi among others. Fascists like death panels and private prisons too. Millions of Jews died because of death panels and the deaths only stopped after American soldiers liberated the prison camps.

The last aspect that fascists and Republicans have in common is their obsession with Christianity. The Republican party is one with the Christian Right today. Their goal is to make Christianity the national religion in order to create a Christian state. Republicans would then tear up the Constitution and replace it with the Bible. Republicans hate separation of church and state and have vowed to destroy it. Republicans have even gone so far as to make up quotes and falsely attribute them to the Founding Fathers to make it seem like they wholeheartedly agree with them. They actually do not agree. This obsession with religion is very familiar, in fact its Hitleresque. Take a gander at these quotes.

“The National Government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.”

“It is the purpose of the Government to fill our whole culture once more with a Christian spirit, and that not only in politics. We want to burn out the harmful features in our theater and our literature.”

“The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, is creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life.”

“The struggle against materialistic views and for a real national community is just as much in the interest of the German nation as in [the interest] of the welfare of our Christian faith. The Government of the Reich regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation. The rights of the churches will not be diminished.”

All of these quotes were spoken by Adolf Hitler, one of fascisms biggest stars. And Republicans agree with his words. In fact, Christianity is one reason why Republicans are doing all of the above things stated throughout this article. If you are a white Christian male that votes Republican, you are safe. But if you aren’t, you are targeted.

The time for compromise with Republicans is over. The time for tolerance of them is also over. We could sit here and allow them to control things and turn the country into a fascist state or we can take action and bring down fascism before it takes hold and strangles us. I’m not suggesting general strikes or pacifism. Republicans would only be too happy to abuse the law and use military force against us. I’m calling on freedom loving Americans everywhere to storm Republican controlled capitals across the country and drag these Republican fascists out of power kicking and screaming and then elect new people to replace them. There may be little other recourse by the time Republicans are finished serving their terms and waiting to recall them will take too much time. Voting rights are being attacked from every angle. Our personal lives are under constant assault. Our right to negotiate our wages are being terminated and war and corporate power are increasing. We can no longer risk allowing this dangerous political party to have any power whatsoever. There was once a time in this country when a party rose up and forcefully put the other one on the sidelines for a long period of time because it was a danger to the nation and its ideals. During the Civil War era, Republicans, also the liberals of the era, came to power and brought down the once conservative Democratic Party for being a threat to freedom and Democracy. Once again, we liberals must rise to the occasion and be willing to fight for ourselves, for others, and for our nations ideals no matter the cost. Only this time, it must be Republicans that pay the price. They must be restricted from holding public office for a couple decades so that Democrats have ample time to clean up their mess and reverse all of the damage done by Republicans. In these dark times, it is our duty to do whatever is necessary to keep America free and its people equal. We must stand up and march together in the millions and topple every Republican controlled capital in the nation and then press forward to Washington DC and chase Republicans out of Congress. Its the only way to save America, ourselves, and those we love. Perhaps after a couple decades in political exile, Republicans will have denounced the fascist elements of their party and come to their senses. If forcing Republicans out of office is our only option to save America and ensure the freedom, equality, survival, and prosperity of the middle class, then in the words of John Boehner, “So be it.”

Related articles

• Letter: Read history, and understand Allen West’s brand of fascism (tcpalm.com)

Peak Water? ‘Last Call at the Oasis’ – Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water

‘Last Call at the Oasis’: Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water

A new film provides a much-needed wake-up call for Americans: Our false sense of water abundance may be our great undoing.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Ev Thomas

The first voice you hear in the new documentary Last Call at the Oasis is Erin Brockovich‘s — the famed water justice advocate whom Julia Roberts portrayed on the big screen.”Water is everything. The single most necessary element for any of us to sustain and live and thrive is water,” says Brockovich as her voice plays over clips of water abundance — gushing rivers and streams. “I grew up in the midwest and I have a father who actually worked for industry … he promised me in my lifetime that we would see water become more valuable than oil because there will be so little of it. I think that time is here.”

The film then cuts to images of water-scarce populations in the world: crowds of people at water tankers, stricken children, news reports of drought in the Middle East, Brazil, China, Spain.

The images are heart-wrenching and alarming … and so are the ones that come next, which are all in the U.S. Water parks, golf courses, car washes, triple shower heads, outside misters — all point to our folly when it comes to water.

We live with a false sense of water abundance and it may be our great undoing. Even though the film opens with Brockovich’s prophecy that water is more valuable than oil, Last Call at the Oasis mostly focuses on how we’ve yet to grasp this news. The film, which is the latest from Participant Media (Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc., Waiting for Superman), delves into our addiction to limitless growth, our blindness to pressures from global warming, and the free pass that industry and agriculture get to pollute.

The narrative of the film, which is directed by Jessica Yu, is driven by interviews, historical footage and some outstanding cinematography. We’re taken to Las Vegas, so often the starting point for discussions of our impending water crisis. We see a receding Lake Mead, learn that Hoover Dam may be close to losing its ability to generate power as water levels drop, and that the intake valve for Las Vegas’ water supply may soon be sucking air.

We hear from Pat Mulroy, Las Vegas’ infamous water manager, about a plan for the city to pipe water over 250 miles from a small agricultural community. The town of Baker, population 150, looks to be on the sacrificial altar for Sin City. As Mulroy says, it is a “project out of sheer desperation.” But that will be little consolation to the folks in Baker. Or to the rest of us. Because what we learn next is that “we’re all Vegas.”

Phoenix and LA also face water pressures, as the Colorado River strains to meet growing demands. The film shows hotspots like the California’s Central Valley, where 7 million acres of irrigated agriculture have turned near desert into the source of one-quarter of the nation’s food — at a steep environmental price.

California is often warned it will be the next Australia, where a decade of drought has devastated the agricultural sector. At the peak of Australia’s drought, the film tell us, one farmer committed suicide every four days. We meet families who are struggling to save their farms, faced with having to slaughter all of their animals. The scenes of heartbreak in Australia are one of the few times in the film the narrative ventures outside the U.S. Mostly the storyline is focused on America’s own evolving plight.

We see Midland, Texas where a community is stricken by cancer from hexavalent chromium in its drinking water. A reoccurring voice throughout the film is Brockovich, who works as a legal consultant all over the U.S. for communities that often find themselves powerless in the face of industry pollution. “There are 1,200 Superfund sites the EPA can’t deal with,” says Brockovich. “The government won’t save you.”

For all our clean water laws, we aren’t very good at enforcement. From 2004 to 2005 an investigation found that the Clean Water Act was violated more than half a million times. It’s not just industry, but pesticides like atrazine, which we learn can be detected in the rain water in Minnesota when it’s being applied in Kansas. In Michigan we see another awful side to Big Ag, the liquid waste from factory “farming,” known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. These CAFOs threaten drinking water with chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones.

So what do we do in the face of these threats to our drinking water? Apparently we buy bottled water — which the film details is not only potentially less safe (it has different regulations from tap water) but is environmentally destructive as well.

There are a few bright spots in the film, including strides that have been made in Singapore and other places to recycle water for drinking. (We could at least start in the U.S. by recycling water for re-use in toilet flushing, irrigation and other non potable uses.) And we get to see a hilarious behind-the-scenes look at an advertising company trying to come up with a campaign to pursuade Americans to drink recycled water. Porcelain Springs anyone?

If you don’t know much about water issues, the film is an essential wake-up call. And judging from the way Americans use water, this film looks like it should have a large audience. It covers a lot of ground, but how well?

“Last Call offers a few solutions but — except for a segment on recycled wastewater — little about how to traverse the tangled political, social and economic pathways to achieve them. In fact, at times its ‘stars’ show the exasperation and resignation that comes from years spent seeing the tires spin in the same wheel ruts,” writes Brett Walton at Circle of Blue. “With so many problems to choose from, some worthy candidates are excluded and some issues are insufficiently explored, but the writers make good use of the material they have selected. They explain technical issues, while never losing sight of the lives that are affected.”

Overall the film is beautiful and compelling but misses the mark in one important place — it fails to address energy in any meaningful way. There are split-second clips of tap water being lit on fire (fracking!) and what looks to be a flyover of a mountaintop removal mining site, but the filmmakers never talk in depth to any of the people who live in our energy sacrifice zones in this country. What about the devastation in Appalachia and the growing threats from fracking and tar sands extraction?

The issues of energy and water are inextricably linked. It takes energy to move and treat water and it takes water to keep our lights on and our cars running. The more we ignore the reality of our fossil-fuel addiction, the more we become tethered to a future of climate chaos — droughts, floods and more turbulent storms. It’d be nice to see a film about U.S. water issues that starts in West Virginia, Pennsylvania or Nebraska instead of Las Vegas. This is the most significant lost opportunity in a film that will hopefully have a large reach across the country as it imparts its other important messages.

Look for a screening near you and check out the trailer below.

Tara Lohan is a senior editor at AlterNet and editor of the new book Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraLohan.

Related articles

• “Last Call at the Oasis” (sunstonefire.wordpress.com)
• ‘Last Call at the Oasis’: Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water (alternet.org)
• ‘Last Call at the Oasis’: A Documentary About Our Global Water Crisis (ecosalon.com)
• Bill Chameides: Water Ills Focus of New Documentary (huffingtonpost.com)
• Erin Brockovich’s New Map Tracks The Dangers Of Polluted Water (fastcoexist.com)
• Utah, Nevada look to prevent water crisis ()
• Erin Brockovich returns to big screen in water doc (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Christianity Synonymous With Ignorance | American Xtian Teens Most Ignorant on Sex and Contraception

Why Are American Teens So Ignorant About Sex and Birth Control?

A new survey reveals just how ignorant young people are about contraception and pregnancy.

Photo Credit: pedrosimoes7

 When it comes to sex and reproduction, even the most mind-numbingly intuitive conclusions can be politicized or disbelieved. So they bear repeating and resubstantiation. Take this recent Guttmacher study on contraceptive knowledge. Surveying 1,800 men and women ages 18–29, the authors “found that the lower the level of contraceptive knowledge among young women, the greater the likelihood that they expected to have unprotected sex in the next three months, behavior that puts them at risk for an unplanned pregnancy.” In other words, access to factual information helps prevent risky behavior.

I’m holding myself back from saying “duh” here, but this still has to be reiterated at a time when abstinence-only education that doesn’t provide detailed information about contraceptive use, except occasionally to emphasize its limits, not only persists but recently got a federal stamp of approval. As an Advocates for Youth report on the impact of abstinence-only education noted, “Proponents of abstinence-only programs believe that providing information about the health benefits of condoms or contraception contradicts their message of abstinence-only and undermines its impact. As such, abstinence-only programs provide no information about contraception beyond failure rates.” That’s how you get terrifying statistics like this one from the Guttmacher report: In the survey, “60 percent underestimated the effectiveness of oral contraceptives and 40 percent held the fatalistic view that using birth control does not matter.” Overall, “more than half of young men and a quarter of young women received low scores on contraceptive knowledge.” It’s also how you get figures like the one from the CDC that found that 31.4 percent of pregnant teens didn’t use contraception because they “thought they could not get pregnant at the time.”

There are two reasons to be optimistic that some dent can be made in these depressing figures, and they both have to do with provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Much has been made of the mandate that insurance policies cover all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, but there’s another aspect that’s been relatively overlooked: the fact that the same provision includes free education and counseling about sex and contraception, at least for the insured. The second reason for optimism is that the mandate will make it far easier for women to get longer-acting and more effective forms of contraception like the IUD — which are also more expensive and which studies have shown women would be interested in if they could afford them. Incidentally, the recent Guttmacher study found that women who were using long-acting or regular hormonal contraception tended to score higher on overall knowledge.

It will be awhile before we know if these changes will move the needle on the nation’s unparalleled rate of unintended pregnancy. The women’s health provisions only go into effect for new plans in August 2012, and older plans will be initially grandfathered and eventually phased out. And of course, there’s another big fat if – whether the Supreme Court overturns all or part of the Affordable Care Act. The Obama campaign and its allies are keen to point out how such a move — or, perhaps, a legislative repeal down the line — will hurt women above all. The Center for American Progress recently released a report on “Women and Obamacare” (the campaign having officially embraced the derisively intended term). It declares Obamacare “the greatest legislative advancement for women’s health in a generation,” which may be true for reasons more depressing than inspiring: There have been very few advancements partly because there has been so much political defense played.

In addition to the reproductive health benefits, the report points to preventive care recommendations for which cost-sharing has already been cut: mammograms, pap smears, prenatal care and so on. According to the report, “close to 9 million women will gain coverage for maternity care in the individual market starting in 2014,” currently not covered in 78 percent of plans sold on the individual market. It notes that women are more frequent users of healthcare services than men, that they’re likelier to make the household decisions on healthcare and that they’re more vulnerable to losing coverage because they’re likelier to be listed as dependents on a partner’s plan. The Affordable Care Act also makes it illegal to engage in “gender rating” – charging women $1 billion more than men on the individual market – and bans states from discriminating on the basis of gender identity in their insurance exchanges.

The report does acknowledge two ways in which Obamacare falls short for women who were “left out of the law — undocumented and recent immigrant women and women who need abortion services.” It claims that “political compromises on abortion coverage were necessary to ensure passage of the Affordable Care Act” – still a bitter loss to reproductive rights groups, who memorably described women as having been “thrown under the bus” by Democrats – “but the work to obtain abortion coverage for all women continues.” The last part is particularly debatable, at least when it comes to any momentum on the funding issue from national Democrats, while Republicans in the states and federally have spent considerable energy trying to limit abortion coverage on even private insurance plans.

Still, if the Affordable Care Act is allowed to stand, the magnitude of having an actual, proactive reproductive health access policy shouldn’t be underplayed. Maybe we’ll get closer to a saner republic where hearing “birth control doesn’t matter” from people who don’t want to get pregnant is a quaint memory.

Related articles

• “Birth control doesn’t matter” (salon.com)
• Why Are American Teens So Ignorant About Sex and Birth Control? (alternet.org)
• Because Of Abstinence Education, 60 Percent Of Young Adults Are Misinformed About Birth Control’s Effectiveness (thinkprogress.org)
• “Abstinence Isn’t Working” (dgsmith.org)
• Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer Signs Legislation Permitting Employers to Interrogate Female Employees About Contraception Use (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Sex Education Delays Teen Sex, Study Finds (livescience.com)
• US election: Barack Obama urges women to fight for their right to contraception (telegraph.co.uk)
• 40 Percent Of Young Adults Think Birth Control ‘Doesn’t Matter’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• States with ‘abstinence-only’ sex ed programs rank highest in teen pregnancies (rawstory.com)

Have Monsanto and Big Corporations Hijacked Higher Education?

How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education

Student research is often dictated by corporations that endow professorships, give money to universities, and put their executives on education boards.

 

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/mostafa fawzy

Here’s what happens when corporations begin to control education.

“When I approached professors to discuss research projects addressing organic agriculture in farmer’s markets, the first one told me that ‘no one cares about people selling food in parking lots on the other side of the train tracks,’” said a PhD student at a large land-grant university who did not wish to be identified. “My academic adviser told me my best bet was to write a grant for Monsanto or the Department of Homeland Security to fund my research on why farmer’s markets were stocked with ‘black market vegetables’ that ‘are a bioterrorism threat waiting to happen.’ It was communicated to me on more than one occasion throughout my education that I should just study something Monsanto would fund rather than ideas to which I was deeply committed. I ended up studying what I wanted, but received no financial support, and paid for my education out of pocket.”

Unfortunately, she’s not alone. Conducting research requires funding, and today’s research follows the golden rule: The one with the gold makes the rules.

A report just released by Food and Water Watch examines the role of corporate funding of agricultural research at land grant universities, of which there are more than 100. “You hear again and again Congress and regulators clamoring for science-based rules, policies, regulations,” says Food and Water Watch researcher Tim
Schwab, explaining why he began investigating corporate influence in agricultural research. “So if the rules and regulations and policies are based on science that is industry-biased, then the fallout goes beyond academic articles. It really trickles down to farmer livelihoods and consumer choice.”

The report found that nearly one quarter of research funding at land grant universities now comes from corporations, compared to less than 15 percent from the USDA. Although corporate funding of research surpassed USDA funding at these universities in the mid-1990s, the gap is now larger than ever. What’s more, a broader look at all corporate agricultural research, $7.4 billion in 2006, dwarfs the mere $5.7 billion in all public funding of agricultural research spent the same year.

Influence does not end with research funding, however. In 2005, nearly one third of agricultural scientists reported consulting for private industry. Corporations endow professorships and donate money to universities in return for having buildings, labs and wings named for them. Purdue University’s Department of Nutrition Science blatantly offers corporate affiliates “corporate visibility with students and faculty” and “commitment by faculty and administration to address [corporate] members’ needs,” in return for the $6,000 each corporate affiliate pays annually.

In perhaps the most egregious cases, corporate boards and college leadership overlap. In 2009, South Dakota State’s president, for example, joined the board of directors of Monsanto, where he earns six figures each year. Bruce Rastetter is simultaneously the co-founder and managing director of a company called AgriSol Energy and a member of the Iowa Board of Regents. Under his influence, Iowa State joined AgriSol in a venture in Tanzania that would have forcefully removed 162,000 people from their land, but the university later pulled out of the project after public outcry.

What is the impact of the flood of corporate cash? “We know from a number of meta-analyses, that corporate funding leads to results that are favorable to the corporate funder,” says Schwab. For example, one peer-reviewed study found that corporate-funded nutrition research on soft drinks, juice and milk were four to eight times more likely to reach conclusions in line with the sponsors’ interests. And when a scrupulous scientist publishes research that is unfavorable to the study’s funder, he or she should be prepared to look for a new source of funding.

That’s what happened to a team of researchers at University of Illinois who were funded by a statewide fertilizer “checkoff” after they published a finding that nitrogen fertilizer depletes organic matter in the soil. Checkoffs are a common method used to market agricultural products, and they are funded by a small amount from each sale of a product – in this case, fertilizer. Richard Mulvaney, one of the U of I researchers, feels it is twisted that, in this way, farmers fund research intended to promote fertilizer use with their own fertilizer purchases.

But often the industry influence may be more subtle. Joyce Lok, a graduate student at Iowa State University, said, “If a corporation funds your research, they want you to look at certain research questions that they want answered. So if that happens it’s not like you can explore other things they don’t want you to look at… I think they direct the research in that way.”

John Henry Wells, who spent several decades as a student, professor and administrator at land grant universities sees it a different way. As an academic, he hopes that his research is relevant to real world problems that agriculture faces at the time. “When you ask the question, did I ever outline a research plan with the explicit notion of is this going to be fundable, I would say no. But I thought very deeply about whether my research plan was going to be relevant, and one of the indicators of relevancy would be if the ideas I put forward would get the attention of trade associations, private industry, benefactors, etc.”

If scientists use fundability as an important criteria of selecting research topics, research intended to serve the needs of the poor and the powerless will be at a disadvantage. However, Wells says that this is hardly a new phenomenon: land grants have existed to serve the elites since their creation in the 19th century.

“As its basis, the land-grant university was intended to cater to a narrow political interest of landowners and homesteaders – individuals who had the right to vote and participate in the political structure of a representative democracy.” he says. “Contemporarily, it is not so much that the land-grant university has been corrupted by modern agro-industrial influence, as it has been historically successful in focusing on its mission in the context of our Constitutional framework of governance. For the land-grant university, its greatest strength – a political collaboration spanning the top-to-bottom echelons of influence – has been its greatest weakness.”

Land grant universities and the USDA itself first came into being at a time when the academic view of agriculture was fundamentally changing – even if most farmers at the time ignored the advice of academics, dismissing them as “book farmers” who knew little about actually working the land. Will Allen writes about this period in his book The War on Bugs, telling the story of Justus von Liebig, a prominent agricultural chemist in Germany.

“In the 1830s, Liebig began asserting that the most essential plant nutrients were nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. His theories fueled the development of chemical fertilizers and ushered in a new age of agricultural science and soil chemistry in the 1840s and 1850s. Though many of Liebig’s theories were wrong, he was the first great propagandist for chemistry and for chemical-industrial agriculture.” Perhaps the most significant of his mistakes was his belief that organic matter in the soil was unimportant.

Dozens of Americans studied under Liebig and returned to the U.S. to continue their work. Two of these students established labs at Harvard and Yale, and soon “all agricultural schools and experiment stations in the country followed their lead.” Thus, practically from the start, the elites in this country served the interests of those who peddled chemical fertilizers and other agricultural inputs – even if that wasn’t their intent. No doubt many were enticed by the prospect of founding a new, modern, scientific form of agriculture, as they felt they were doing.

The unholy trinity of industry, government and academics promoting industrial agriculture and de-emphasizing or dismissing sustainable methods has a long history and it continues today. In its report, Food and Water Watch advocates a return to robust federal funding of research at land grant universities. But government is hardly immune from serving the corporate agenda either.

Take, for example, Roger Beachy, the former head of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), the agency in the USDA that doles out research grants. Beachy spent much of his career as an academic, collaborating with Monsanto to produce the world’s first genetically engineered tomato. He later became the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Monsanto’s non-profit arm, before President Obama appointed him to lead NIFA.

As Schwab noted, policy is often based on research, but good policy requires a basis in unbiased, objective research. In a system in which corporations and government both fund research, but due to the revolving door, the same people switch between positions within industry, lobbying for industry, and within government, what is the solution?

Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It..

Related articles

• How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education (climate-connections.org)
• Monsanto’s college strangehold (salon.com)
• The Corruption of Science: How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education (sott.net)
• How Corporations Like Monsanto Have Hijacked Higher Education (alternet.org)
• How Your College Is Selling Out to Big Ag (climate-connections.org)