Is the Apocalyptic Xian Right the New Nazis?

[Richard Stanley]

This 2008 book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
posits just that. Which complements my theme that Donald Trump is their Fuhrer. It makes a good companion read to Goldberg's Kingdom Coming, the Rise of Christian Nationalism.

We are now 9 years in from what has been written below. The nationalists lost to the Romans, they lost to the Allies, and they will eventually lose again (likely in 2070), because their globalist Bible tells them so. Now they have their first false messiah, the new administration full of Jesuit handlers and devout lackeys like Pence.

The Bible is brilliantly devious in that the pious will read into it whatever they want, while the Globalist Jesus smiles down and says, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."

...
American Fascists, which includes interviews and coverage of events such as pro-life rallies and weeklong classes on conversion techniques, examines the movement's origins, its driving motivations and its dark ideological underpinnings. Hedges argues that the movement currently resembles the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and were willing to make concessions until they achieved unrivaled power. The Christian Right, like these early fascist movements, does not openly call for dictatorship, nor does it use physical violence to suppress opposition. In short, the movement is not yet revolutionary. But the ideological architecture of a Christian fascism is being cemented in place. The movement has roused its followers to a fever pitch of despair and fury. All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the Christian Right to make a concerted drive to destroy American democracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the intolerant.
https://www.amazon.com/American-Fascists-Christian-Right-America-ebook/dp/B000N0WT92/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1​

 

[Jerry Russell]

The nationalists lost to the Romans, they lost to the Allies, and they will eventually lose again (likely in 2070), because their globalist Bible tells them so.

I can understand how peripheral nationalistic states like Judea or even Germany could lose to the globalists. But I've realized I'm not so sure about drawing the same conclusion about American nationalism. The American state is basically a core institution of globalist and corporate power. I understand the argument that lower class American midwesterners and the like, are going to be disappointed that "American nationalism" doesn't really serve their interests. But (to use the Jewish war as an example) wouldn't it be fair to say that Vespasian and Titus were Roman Nationalists, just as much if not more so than they were globalists? Or, in other words: Roman (and early Christian) globalism was just a propaganda device to dress up the Roman state, which was essentially racist and nativist.

 

[Richard Stanley]

But (to use the Jewish war as an example) wouldn't it be fair to say that Vespasian and Titus were Roman Nationalists, just as much if not more so than they were globalists?

No, they were very cosmopolitan and multicultural.

One can say that about the Republic maybe, but not the Imperium. The Republicans cried crocodile tears when Julius expanded Roman citizenship merely beyond the city state, and expanded the Senate as well.

The use of the term empire, as opposed to a nation, implies expansionist goals. Of course, one can see that there is significant duplicity here, as America's internal propaganda is that it is a 'nation', but yes, the elites have always used it for global adventures. The federal government's power wielded for the interests of American corporations overseas, today with something less than a thousand US military posts on foreign soil. Just protecting the nation.

When Bannon et al. get their Crusade on they will ironically recruit the sons and daughters of the nationalists, eager to fight the perceived enemies of Santa Claus. Why not, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Ironically the Christmas tree a pagan concept before the time of Christ, and everything else about Christmas is the same and not supported in their canon. Stupid is as stupid does.

 

[Marcilla Smith]

I think maybe y'all are talking past each other

 

[Jerry Russell]

As harmonious as a barbershop quartet singing Schoenberg.

There is a type of cosmopolitan multiculturalism that can appreciate the contributions and the merits of many different peoples, as long as they are all kept in their proper place.

 

[Richard Stanley]

OK, so whatz the point?

 

[Jerry Russell]

Does a barbershop quartet zinging Zchoenberg have any point? And what is the point of being pointy, anyhow?

But I find myself wondering if we are imagining different end-time scenarios. Circa 2070, what would the defeat of American nationalism look like? Are you expecting to see New York, Washington, and Los Angeles all reduced to impoverished backwater status? Capital of the world state moved to Astana, Kazakhstan?

Regardless of how local regions fare -- we do expect the world rulers to be predominantly white, including a lot of red-heads, correct?

 

[Richard Stanley]

Those cities you mention are all rather cosmopolitan so I doubt they would be permanently affected, only temporarily by the (apocalyptic) war. Same for other regions. But who of us outsiders can really know? However, Revelations does use the word 'nations', but here they all answer to one authority. I don't believe it is specified that these 'nations' are characterized as ethnically pure, so-called 'race nations'. So yes, I would guess that if future matters run consistent to the past, that the red-heads will prevail. Perhaps still sublimated behind a veil.

Interesting in the this regard also is the curious Nabateans, of Petra. Just re-watched a Nova show on them and the city. Bookending the beginning of the Christian era, Petra was at its peak, the ultimate 'global' traders of the day. Pliny said they were the richest people of the time, bar none. The architectural motifs in the city were a mix of every other major culture, of which they integrated into their own unique mashup. Similar to what I've noted about the curious quick transformation of the Normans from supposedly rude Vikings into urbane conquerors (from Britain to Palestine) and scholars, the Nabateans supposedly transform from nomadic herdsmen into global traders and perform unrivaled feats of engineering. Such as designing an optimal gravity flow ceramic pipe system to feed water from the Spring of Moses to the city, five miles away. The principles of which have only recently been rediscovered, by reverse engineering the Nabatean feat.

The land of the Nabateans overlaps with Biblical Edom, the land of the red-headed Esau, or Idumaea. The land where the Herodians were from. Given the Romans economic modus operandi, its interesting that they didn't seem to bother too much with these Nabateans, next door to Palestine. Petra collapses in the 4th century BCE around the time of Constantine, apparently after such as a series of earthquakes weaken protective dams, and a final flash flood destroys the city, and apparently the will to rebuild. But had they already moved on.

As noted before, the Talmud claims the Romans were ... Idumaeans.

And so a common theme of tension develops, where there are people that are wed to their land and culture of youth, versus a different set of people whose culture is not only adaptable but lends itself to taking over others via various strategies, conquest and such as intermarriage to existing native leaders, etc.. These people are essentially the shepherds of humans, contriving violent schisms to facilitate turning human sheep temporarily into conquerors and then back again into complacent sheep. Until the next cycle.

Today, the incoherent thrashings of Trump is seen on the one hand as evidence of impending doom, while his base of sheep still adulate him, convinced that he is on the right track. Sardonically, the Christian hero, Jesus is said to descend from David and Solomon, who in some ways Trump emulates. The building of the temple and other (Big Government) matters caused the Israelites to hate the Judaeans, David and Solomon, leading to a civil war and divided country. The cosmopolitans versus the country folk? But the common man is more prone to adulate the strong man of the moment, placing his short term aspirations and misplaced gut feelings before thoughtful deliberation. Of course, we were only offered a choice between the equal of two evils.

However, in the OT scheme, Judah is subservient to Ephraim, who is supposed booted out of the Promised Land along with the other Lost Tribes. This occurs sometime around the rather vague and unprovable time of the foundation of Rome (Ab urbe condita) by the mythic Romulus and Remus (whose story has curious shades of Moses and the Exodus). And all this happens far too long after the collapse of Troy, as the Aeneid narrative claims.

 

[Richard Stanley]

No, they were very cosmopolitan and multicultural.

One can say that about the Republic maybe, but not the Imperium. The Republicans cried crocodile tears when Julius expanded Roman citizenship merely beyond the city state, and expanded the Senate as well.

Yesterday I just watched Part 1 of Mary Beard's 3 part documentary, Meet the Romans. She placed a different nuance on matters. She claims from the archaeological evidence that the Romans were indeed very welcoming of different ethnic peoples from all over, but the key is that they had to completely assimilate into becoming Romans, period. Here, I think that she is mostly talking about the imperium days. If not, there is some conflating of the original concern of the original 'Romans' as to their elite tribal status during the days of the city-state.

She also nuanced the Roman practice of slavery, as it being a transitional state for an outsider to earn his way to manumission, i.e. becoming a freedman. Not stated in the docu is that the slave must earn the favorable disposition of his owner, and then once freed was obligated to maintain the favor of his former owner, now becoming the freedman's patrone. This later word shares the same root as our 'patriot', albeit we think it more narrowly means one doing willing duty to the glorious state. Only now the 'patriots' (mostly descendants of the Euro serfs) ironically hate the 'state'. Because 'their' state went global on them, as the patrones are wont to do.

Shown was a grave marker for three men, with clearly Jewish given names, and all sharing the Roman surname of what appears to have been their former slaveowner, a common practice. American slaves would do the exact same thing.

 

[Marcilla Smith]

It seems to me there is one strain of the political dialogue which tends to view the globalists of the New World Order as a threat to America's (the new world's) sovereignty (order), while the opposing strain's idea of multicultural utopia seems to be branding transnational corporate cultures as "American," US American hegemony as "democracy," and the practice of democracy as "violent mobs of angry protesters, breaking downtown store windows, hurling bricks at police, and even setting a patrol car ablaze," all the while accusing "the conservatives" of being the ones "protecting the interests of the 1%."

In a sense, the political climate has become the concert hall of the New Song(s). Even fifty years ago, more parents found it unthinkable that their children would marry outside of their family's faith than outside their political affiliation. That trend is now reversed. For the average US American, religion has become a speculative hobby, if even that, and politics is the thing which is a matter of "life and death."

Following from this, the Republicans (closer to true "liberals," in the classical sense) are like the Old Guard of the Roman Empire, arguing that the deified imperium should be personified in Father Zeus or Janus Christ instead of Father Adonai or the anointed Yeshua. Meanwhile, the Democratic elites have learned to push a status quo agenda with language that came out of the Progressive movement which died to any chance at real political power over half a century ago.

So there's my contribution for "near-term historical parallels to the Roman appropriation of messianic Judaism"

 

[Richard Stanley]

while the opposing strain's idea of multicultural utopia seems to be branding transnational corporate cultures as "American," US American hegemony as "democracy," and the practice of democracy as "violent mobs of angry protesters, breaking downtown store windows, hurling bricks at police, and even setting a patrol car ablaze," all the while accusing "the conservatives" of being the ones "protecting the interests of the 1%."

Not sure you meant to say that the "opposing strain" is advocating "the practice of democracy as "violent mobs of angry protesters, breaking downtown store windows, ...". But maybe you are? But who specifically are you defining as this "opposing strain"? Of course, I would agree that the dynamic to react against the former Do Less Than Nothing strategy of the now amorphous right (populism and conservatism) is leading some to such actions. Especially when Do Less Than Nothing McConnell now has his wife as Sec Trans who will advocate for more transportation infrastructure spending than Obama had asked for -- and was refused.

In a sense, the political climate has become the concert hall of the New Song(s).

You mean a New Song of Discordia right? In the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic schema Dis-harmonia is needed to precipitate the bloody cleansing that will ultimately produce the Harmonia desired for the new age. And so to close the old age, if there is no enemy you must create one, if there is no discord you must covertly agitate for it.

Following from this, the Republicans (closer to true "liberals," in the classical sense) are like the Old Guard of the Roman Empire, arguing that the deified imperium should be personified in Father Zeus or Janus Christ instead of Father Adonai or the anointed Yeshua. Meanwhile, the Democratic elites have learned to push a status quo agenda with language that came out of the Progressive movement which died to any chance at real political power over half a century ago.

Yes, the Dem elites have long co-opted the Progressives, but this time we curiously found such voters on the fence between Sanders and Trump. The DNC was caught red-handed favoring Hillary, despite that she had such negatives, and that Sanders had far better numbers against Trump. So in this sense, I disagree with your premise that the Progressive movement died 50 years ago. It's ghost is still being actively managed by the Trumphilary Pythagorean triangulation folks.

 

[Marcilla Smith]

Not sure you meant to say that the "opposing strain" is advocating "the practice of democracy as "violent mobs of angry protesters, breaking downtown store windows, ...". But maybe you are?

I mean to say that while the Democrats may keep their heads down if people are protesting the grossly unpopular DAPL, what do you expect Rachel Maddow's reaction to be when reporting on protests at the DNC? I mean that the exercise of the very fundamentally Constitutional right to peacefully assemble is stigmatized, criminalized, and even when allowed, marginalized. By the so-called "liberals," too

And so to close the old age, if there is no enemy you must create one, if there is no discord you must covertly agitate for it.

Where is the need to create? Isn't there enough discord between "the two sides" in US American politics, already? And this outcome is how matters would be expected between competing "immortality projects," according to Denial of Death.

In any event, whether one of the Flavians or other was more supportive of the Roman Pantheon or the Jewish Trinity, what is the significance of whether one is better described as a Hellenistic Roman, or else a Roman Hellenist?

The DNC was caught red-handed favoring Hillary, despite that she had such negatives, and that Sanders had far better numbers against Trump.

Yes, and the Sanders campaign was a progressive alternative to Miss Clinton's, and the closest thing to a disruption of the status quo DNC nomination process for president that anyone has seen since the '68 riots.

But that's kind of my point: while the labor union-led Progressive movement was epitomized by unionized factory workers raised by unionized factory workers, Col. Sanders is less the result of poultry workers, and more associated with his tender chickens. And let me be clear: by "tender chickens" I mean millenials who are more likely to have learned about the Colonel's progressive politics from social media or professors of sociology than from the union they joined when they dropped out of high school to go to work with their older siblings.

Now whether Bernie Christ is the second coming of the Progressive movement or not depends on whether one is a preterist, or futurist, I suppose

 

[Richard Stanley]

I mean to say that while the Democrats may keep their heads down if people are protesting the grossly unpopular DAPL, what do you expect Rachel Maddow's reaction to be when reporting on protests at the DNC? I mean that the exercise of the very fundamentally Constitutional right to peacefully assemble is stigmatized, criminalized, and even when allowed, marginalized. By the so-called "liberals," too

Well, here you're talking of the internal chasms that have existed in both national parties, forever. Namely that the grass roots are co-opted at the top by the corporatists and internationalists, by the latter's design. Usually most of the poultry workers and tender chickens can't, or refuse to, grasp that the national candidates' rhetoric is BS. Part of the flimflam is that most of the lower level pols maintain their grass roots positions. The more flexible the pol, the more likely he or she will rise to the top.

Where is the need to create? Isn't there enough discord between "the two sides" in US American politics, already? And this outcome is how matters would be expected between competing "immortality projects," according to Denial of Death.

Yes, there is a problem with competing world and cosmoviews, the more inflexible the more violent, e.g. Sunnis and Shias. In America there was once enough overlap in views and aspirations that there was significant overlap. I assert that many aspects of the last decades of cultural 'liberalization' have been intentionally pushed too hard down everyone's throats. The goal being to incite a back lash reaction, that would otherwise blow over. This is where the term 'reactionary' comes from in the first place.

Now whether Bernie Christ is the second coming of the Progressive movement or not depends on whether one is a preterist, or futurist, I suppose

How so?

BTW, the first part of my Apocalypse How? series is immanent.

 

[Richard Stanley]

The following lecture presents the true story of the rise of the political Religious Right. It is a lie that it crystalized out of the anti-abortion issue. Rather it gelled out the political slime of Paul Weyrich, who unfairly and successfully tarred evangelical Jimmy Carter over the IRS targeting of tax exemptions for politicized churches. This to the profit of Ronald Reagan.

It should be noted that Weyrich was a hardline Catholic who was so unhappy about the liberalization of Vatican II that he converted to Greek Orthodox. He was also closely associated with the so-called Dominionist movement, a loose association of the Christian Right that seeks greater (or total to some) political power. This being a major break with the traditional, original approach of American evangelicals to remain separated from corrupt worldly affairs, their reward being in Heaven.

 

[Jerry Russell]

There's a new Netflix documentary that describes another far-right Christian organization called "The Family" or "The Fellowship", headed until recently by Doug Coe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fellowship_(Christian_organization)

Jeff Sharlet stated in an NBC Nightly News report that when he was an intern with the Fellowship "we were being taught the leadership lessons of Hitler, Lenin and Mao" and that Hitler's genocide "wasn't really an issue for them, it was the strength that he emulated."[35] He opined that the Fellowship fetishizes power by comparing Jesus to "Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Bin Laden" as examples of leaders who change the world through the strength of the covenants they had forged with their 'brothers'".[16][18] In his book The Family, Sharlet said Fellowship leader Doug Coe preached a leadership model and a personal commitment to Jesus Christ comparable to the blind devotion that Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot demanded from their followers.[36]​

​

Documentary trailer:

 

[Richard Stanley]

Yeah, I've mentioned The Family before: https://postflaviana.org/community/index.php?threads/trumps-faux-populism.2223/#post-9184

I think we have some material about them in our e-mail archive as well.

 

[Richard Stanley]

Here is some more on Jeff Sharlet and The Family, which I have posted in the Trump thread: https://postflaviana.org/community/index.php?threads/just-saying-whos-trumping-der-fuhrer.1548/post-14856

The following talk is a nice backgrounder on the history of the Evangelical movement. Fitzgerald has a nice point in how such as Billy Graham co-opted the wider general Christian term for the more narrow movement. Fitzgerald mentions the fracturing of the Evangelical Movement as cognitive dissonance has crept in amongst those who have recognized the dichotomy in the treatment of what the message of Jesus means to them, which traditionally implied a softer approach to the poor. This versus the more 'Tough Love' approach as witnessed by such Elects as Trump and The Family.

This dichotomy in interpretation of the Christian (and Judaic) message has always been present, from day one of these religions, and thus we 'merely' seeing the latest geopolitical machinations being played out. Part of what we have termed the repeating cycles of Conquest, Colonization, Consolidation, and Schism, which fits neatly into millennialism and apocalypticism - made immanent by human agency behind the robe of their god.

 

[Seeker]

Is this what Tupper Saussy really meant by Christian "reconciliation" in his "Rulers of Evil"?


The Fellowship Foundation's 501(c)(3) mission statement is:

To develop and maintain an informal association of people banded together, to go out as "ambassadors of reconciliation," modeling the principles of Jesus, based on loving God and loving others. To work with the leaders of many nations, and as their hearts are touched, the poor, the oppressed, the widows, and the youth of their country will be impacted in a positive manner. Youth groups will be developed under the thoughts of Jesus, including loving others as you want to be loved.[

 

[Richard Stanley]

Good question, what do you think?

I suspect that Saussey would be agin such totalitarian imperialism.

Here's another good interview, this time conducted by a Fellow of the libertarian Cato Institute. An interesting moment was when the Koch brothers were mentioned, and almost at the end Sharlet mentions their involvement in fomenting the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. Hitler, Nazis?

 

[Seeker]

In the beginning, after reading his book some years ago, I agreed that Christian reconcilation was Saussy's own personal "creed", but, from memory, later on I remember reading that on that back inside bookflap of the original "Rulers of Evil" (I have it), his photo is within the sunburst Mark of Cain/Anu, signifying that he was protected by the "Rulers of Evil" in the writing of this material. These rulers supposedly have a protocol demanding that this sort of information be published in limited quantities, so that the truth was in plain sight for all to see who really cared, just as Adolf Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" for all to see his intentions. However "many are called, but few are chosen" (variation of Matthew 20:16 and 22:14).