News Intelligence Analysis
Is an Unholy
American Theocracy Here
Or Has Jim
Jones Gone Mainstream?
Posted October 9, 2005
Links Updated October 10, 2005
By Katherine Yurica
Katherine Yurica’s
plenary address at the New York City Conference, Examining
the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Right, April 29-April
30th, 2005 co-sponsored by the NY Open Center and CUNY Graduate
Center Public Programs.
Good afternoon,
Beginning in the 1970’s religious leaders
Tim LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who believed in
unregulated capitalism, began focusing on huge segments of our
American culture, labeling it “immoral.” Humanists
and atheists led the excluders’ list and were declared to
be “unfit to hold public office or to teach our children.”
Not only were whole classes singled out for expulsion from public
life, but those excluded were also Christians who disagreed
with them.
Because Dr. Bill Frist, the Senate Majority
Leader, resurrected a Tim LaHaye tactic of labeling anyone who
opposes an administration nominee to the Federal bench as “anti-Christian,”
I want to give you a brief glimpse of what was said in a fiery
exchange between former Rep. Pat Schroeder and Tim LaHaye, the
co-author of the Left Behind series. I recorded this interview
from the Phil Donahue Show on September 6, 1985.
LaHaye: “I
don’t think that Mrs. Schroeder and some of the liberals
in our congress…would ever permit a Christian to be approved.”
Rep. Schroeder:
“I am a Christian and I went to law school and I think I
could apply through legitimate channels and you wouldn’t
pass me…”
La Haye: “But
that’s not the reason we wouldn’t pass you. We wouldn’t
pass you because you’re a flaming liberal…”
Today, it’s important to realize that
those excluded are us—everyone else in America. We are labeled
“corrupt” and “anti-Christian.” Thus Christianity
is being defined by one’s political identity not one’s
religious beliefs.
During the 1980’s
I began taping and transcribing Pat Robertson’s 700 Club
show because of the alarming anti-Christian political philosophy
he was endorsing. He began a drum beat for drastic political
and cultural changes to this country. Robertson’s guests
did something I’d never seen before: they reversed the scriptures
and called it immoral for the citizens to help the poor through
taxation, which, by the way is expressly required in the Old
Testament. The accusation was and is that taxation robbed the
rich to help the poor. If you are interested in how the movement
reversed Judeo-Christian standards, see Bloodguilty
Churches (which is also available at Amazon.com).
Robertson slowly introduced the idea of
an American empire; he attacked pluralism, and pleaded
that the people of the U.S. “must speak with one voice.”
(7/19/85) The idea of taking over and controlling the United
States government began with a series of guest appearances:
On April 4, 1985,
Billy Graham appeared on the show, and in a startling announcement
said, “I’m for evangelicals … getting control
of the Congress, getting control of the bureaucracy, getting
control of the executive branch of government. If we leave it
to the other side we’re going to be lost.”
On September
25, 1985, Tim LaHaye, appeared in a film clip with Phyllis Schlafly
on the show. In that clip, he laid out the plan to take over
the government of the United States. He said:
“Suppose that
every Bible believing church—all 110,000—decided to…raise
up one person to run for public office and win… If every
church in the next ten years did that, we would have more Christians
in office than there are positions…there are only 97,000
elective offices.”
Though the idea of right-wing religious
conservatives controlling the U.S. government appeared to be
a pipedream to most observers I talked with, for the churchgoers
who were listening—and by 1985 Robertson’s 700 Club
topped the Nielsen ratings with a projected monthly viewing audience
of 28.7 million viewers—to those viewers—the idea of
gaining and holding the power in this country was a tantalizing
and intriguing concept—they began to accept the idea of
dominating America step by step, day by day.
The plot was augmented by Pat Robertson
and was laid out in chatty bits and pieces over an estimated
eighteen month period. My mom and I transcribed more than 1,300
pages in eight volumes.
The plan was to begin with a three pronged
thrust:
1) The first
goal was to gain control of the Republican party and then through
the GOP, gain control of Congress.
2) The second
goal was to revamp the balance of powers between the three branches
of government, so that the judiciary would be weakened permanently
and the power of Congress would be strengthened—if it were
controlled by the religious right.
3) Similarly,
the third goal involved the power of the presidency, which was
to be variously weakened when an unacceptable person occupied
the White House, but strengthened when a “God-anointed man”
was in office.
4) The fourth
goal was to gain the power to control domestic morality by denouncing
the “immoral” and by “breaking” individuals
and organizations such as the NationalEducation Association [NEA].
In fact one of the goals of the movement is to destroy public
education in America altogether.
There was never any doubt of the ultimate
goal. It was going to be “dominion.” And “What
is dominion?” Pat Robertson asked his television audience,
“Well, dominion is lordship, to reign and rule.” (5/1/86
700 Club show) It was also a chilling catechism fitting
another term, the fascism of a religious cult.
Today we are living in a nation run by an
unholy cult that has combined an anti-Christian political agenda
with religion. Today, the Dominionists’ dream is within
their grasp:
In material given to people attending a dominionist “Reclaim
America” Conference in Florida in February, 2005, Dr.
James Kennedy, pastor of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church
revealed not only how the idea of controlling America has spread,
but how seriously the Dominionists take their new role: Kennedy
says:
“Our job is to reclaim America
for Christ, whatever the cost,” Kennedy says. “As the
vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence
over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature
and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news
media, our scientific endeavors — in short, over every aspect
and institution of human society.”[1]
At this juncture we are faced with the following:
the religious right control the GOP, the White House and both
houses of congress. They are putting on a massive effort to place
dominionist judges into the Federal Court system. So far, [as
of April 26th, 2005] Mr. Bush has appointed and the Senate has
approved 204 judges, (more judges than any other president appointed
since Jimmy Carter), which brings the number of Republican appointed
judges to 666 versus about 285 judges appointed by Democrats
using 1997 figures.
What we are talking about here is the emergence
of a powerful political/religious cult that incorporates neo-conservative
philosophy, Machiavellian teachings and the triumph of political
corporatism. It’s the story of the emergence of coercive
politics, the promotion of scapegoatism, fear, paranoia, political
propaganda, and the acceptance and praise of intellectual dishonesty.
Dominionism is cloaked in the mantle of
Christianity. Significantly, it is the fastest growing political
force in America today. However, it is neither Fundamentalist
Christianity nor is it conservative politics.
I recommend my essay The
Despoiling of America, which will give you a picture
of the antecedents and influences that have poured into the boiling
caldron of the religious scene in America and which is published
in Toward a New Political Humanism, edited by Barry Seidman.
I also recommend Shadia Drury’s book, Leo Strauss and
the American Right.
From the beginning the leaders used words
with skill: Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson smoothed the fears
of Americans. Falwell explained that he and his organizations
didn’t want to Christianize the nation. Like everyone else,
they just wanted to have input and have their say.
But those reassurances directed to the secular
world at large have been contradicted repeatedly by statements
from the Religious Right Dominionist leaders to their own followers.
Take for example this statement, transcribed from the April 24,
1986 700 Club broadcast that repeats the Tim LaHaye
take-over plot from the year before. Just keep in mind that repetition
is the heart of advertising:
Pat Robertson
gave a hearty “Amen” to this statement by Jerry Falwell:
“There are
110,000 Bible believing churches in America. There are 400,000
churches, but 110,000 believe in the inerrancy of scriptures
and believe in world evangelization and preaching of the Gospel.
Now these 110,000 [are] 40 to 50 million Americans [who] possess
the ability of changing the spiritual, the social and the political
scene in this country forever, and of affecting a world changing
thing, in my opinion, just before the Lord Jesus comes to take
us out.”
In short: Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, Tim
LaHaye, and Jerry Falwell laid out a plan to take control of
America.
To make their plan work, they had to take
Jim Jones mainstream! I’m going to take a few minutes
to show you how this was done. But first, be aware the leaders
of this movement necessarily studied not only Machiavelli and
Jim Jones, but important books like The Rise and Fall of the
Third Reich by Wm. L. Shirer. They had to have read Hitler’s
Mein Kampf. I say this with confidence because anyone
who has learned to quack like a duck has necessarily studied
ducks!
Listen to The Techniques of
a Master:
“To
be a leader,” Hitler said, “means to be able to move
the masses.” He was writing the textbook on the modern subjugation
of a country. Aldous Huxley pointed out in Brave New World
Revisited that “Hitler’s aim was first to move
the masses and then, having pried them loose from their traditional
loyalties and moralities, to impose upon them … a new authoritarian
order of his own devising.” Huxley perfectly
understood the psychological doubleness of the false prophet,
for while he becomes the darling of the people, he only feigns
his love for them. To a Hitler, the “masses are utterly
contemptible.”
Nevertheless
in order to manipulate them, Hitler knew that one must find the
key that would sidestep the critical guardian to their subconscious
minds. It was his genius to perceive that of all the tremendous
revolutions in history, none were propelled and driven by scientific
teachings. Truth seemed incapable of gaining power over the masses.
(This observation has made its way into Eric Huebeck’s essay
that has become the playbook for “how the conservative”
movement can triumph over liberals, which was originally presented
by Paul Weyrich’s Free Congress web site and now is posted on mine and Joan
Boekaer’s web
sites.)
Hitler also
believed something else was historically at the bottom of great
human upheavals. And Hitler described it as some kind of “devotion
which inspires them, and often a kind of hysteria which has urged
them into action.” The issue then became, how best to utilize
it? Hitler saw that the passions—the zeal as well as the
hatreds, frustrations and paranoia of the masses must be manipulated
by flattery and passion. Partisan loyalty must be encouraged.
Enemies must be identified and attacked. Where have I heard that
before? Jerry Falwell for one. And Eric Huebeck for another!
There are key
observations that Hitler made that can be applied to the Bush
administration’s success. For instance, the masses, according
to Hitler, are always convinced that “right is on the side
of the active aggressor.” This active aggressor role refers
to both wars launched by nations and to verbal attacks launched
by ones’ operatives. Hitler said, in the ranks of
“supporters the victory achieved seems a triumph of the
justice of their own cause, the defeated adversary in most cases
despairs of the success of any further resistance.”
Hitler, himself,
wrote his formula for gaining political power in Mein Kampf.
He had quickly learned the value of what he called “spiritual
terror.” He said it consisted of unleashing “...a veritable
barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems
most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break
down...This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human
weaknesses,” he declared “and its result will lead
to success with almost mathematical certainty...”
Somebody must
have told the Swift Boat Vets about this tactic! And Eric Huebeck wrote:
“We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against
the Left.” I intend to discuss how to fight
back to defeat these tactics a little later, But first:
Notice How Hitler’s Propaganda
Machine Worked:
“All
effective propaganda,” Hitler wrote, “must be confined
to a few bare necessities and then must be expressed in a few
stereotyped formulas.”
One of the most
useful tools of a skilled propagandist was a careful redefining
of certain words. “Domination over our enemies,” for
example, could become a much better slogan if it were changed
to: ‘We seek only the liberty to be ourselves!’ Suddenly
negative connotations disappeared. And even the critics could
not oppose “liberty.”
This refrain
is echoed today in every speech and every step of the Bush administration.
Mr. Bush used the words “free,” “freedom”
and “liberty”
49
times in his second
inaugural address. And each time his idea of “freedom”
meant not only the Christianization
of nations but the
U.S. domination over those nations he said we would “free,”
and it meant the Christianization
and subjugation of America and Americans!
We know this because Mr. Bush’s 2nd inaugural
address shows he
does not believe America is a “free”
nation—until it is Christianized.
One might ask
how Mr. Bush learned to convert his words into phrases that create
a positive image. The answer is this: his speech writers take
the advice of an expert propagandist!
Frank Luntz
is the man I have called “the
propagandist of the century.” He helped Newt Gingrich
with his “Contract With America” campaign. And
he has worked consistently with Republican candidates ever since
then. Luntz shows Republicans how to win important campaigns
by using words that trigger the right emotions. He redefines
words! He says, “Words with emotion can change destiny.”
On a TV show recently, the word “logging” was
thrown at him as a pop quiz: He responded immediately: “Healthy
Forests!” If you want to see the Luntz propaganda
techniques, see the Playbook for the Bush administration’s
game plan to win the 2006 elections, which is posted
on our web site.
Albert Speer,
Hitler’s Minister for Armaments, said at his trial at Nuremberg:
“Through technical devices like the radio and the loudspeaker,
eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It
was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.”
As a result, Speer concluded, there arose in Germany a “new
type” of individual, “the uncritical recipient of orders.”
Hitler did not
appear to the people of Germany as a devil with horns and cloven
hooves. On the contrary, he was “a man of the people,”
and he successfully packaged himself that way. He thoroughly
understood the perennial distrust the masses have for intellectuals.
Therefore, the deeper his roots in the broad masses, the more
he sounded like “one of them,” the less he represented
a threat to them, the more followers he would gain. And the more
blind people remained to his true nature.
The Power and the Art of Manipulation:
The Jim Jones Story
A neighbor recalls observing the Rev. Jim
Jones as a boy: I’m quoting the neighbor here: “He
could preach a good sermon. I remember working about two hundred
feet from the Jones’ place. He would have about ten youngsters
in there, and he would put them through their paces...line them
up and make them march. He’d hit them with a stick and they’d
scream and cry.
“I used to say, ‘What’s
wrong with those kids, putting up with it?’ But they’d
come back to play with him the next day. He had some kind of
magnetism.
“I told my family, ‘You
know, he’s either going to do a lot of good, or he’s
going to end up like Hitler.’”
The obsession with power never left Jones.
As a pastor he exercised control over the families of his church
to such an extent that he ordered marriages ended and arranged
new ones.
November 18, 1978, is the day of the Jim
Jones Guyana tragedy where over 900 men, women and children perished,
most by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.
Not only did Jim Jones demonstrate that
the religious would follow their leader to their deaths, there
is one other major contribution that Jim Jones made to the religious/political
world of our times: He showed how the power of the churches could
be used politically! Jones techniques have been literally incorporated
into the religious right’s playbook:
Consider this:
1)
Jones started his congregation on letter-writing blizzards
to politicians and to the press. Later Pat Robertson began encouraging
his viewers to blitz congress with phone calls and letters.
2)
Jones started “Operation Breadbasket, a charity”
Robertson started “Operation Blessing, a charity.”
3)
Jones developed a technique to manipulate the press that
included flattering reporters who wrote favorably about him,
and excluding reporters who wrote negatively. A technique Mr.
Bush uses.
4)
Jones began publishing a 6-to-8 page newspaper called
the Peoples Forum with a press run of 60,000. The paper
combined political causes with church news! Later, Pat
Robertson inserted a news bureau into his religious show.
5)
Jones bought thirty minutes of broadcast time every Saturday
from 11:00 to 11:30 a.m. on station KFAX in San Francisco where
he talked about the arms race, the causes of crime and discussed
South Africa.
6)
Jones began sending his followers on political missions—the
kind where instant crowds were needed. Reporters wrote, “One
Democratic party worker found herself caught short while preparing
a Rosalynn Carter appearance in September 1976. A big crowd was
needed in a hurry, so the organizer put a call in to Jones. The
rally was due to start at 8:00 p.m. By 6:30 the Temple buses
had dropped off 750 people at the Market Street rally site.
7)
During the close race for mayor in December
1975, some eight hundred Peoples Temple members worked to get
out the vote in precincts where winning candidate George Moscone
received up to a 12 to 1 margin.
Indeed, Jim Jones’ surreal power over
his congregants leaps out from the grave even today. In short,
those who read about Jim Jones, and studied his successes have
repeated and brought his accomplishments into the political life
of this nation: Jim Jones has gone mainstream!
And how could a leader get away with a religious
fraud that barely hides its destructive and false intent?
Jim Jones’s history holds the
answer. He not only proved the obvious fact that people are blinded
by their religious beliefs and will only impute goodness, mercy,
and religious motivations to their leader, but Jim Jones proved
the efficacy of the basic teaching of Machiavelli: a leader must
only appear to have the qualities of goodness—he need not
actually possess those attributes.
Who Wins? Them or Us?
Let’s look at a Hitlerian technique:
Eric
Huebeck said,
“We will take
advantage of every available opportunity to spread the idea that
there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing state
of affairs. For example, we could have every member of
the movement put a bumper sticker on his car that says something
like “Public Education is Rotten; Home-school Your Kids.”
Notice how Huebeck builds his attack: he
spreads the idea that there is something wrong with our system
of government or education, whether or not that is true. Truth
is irrelevant to the propagandist. He then offers an alternative
that if carried out would destroy public education—he opts
for destruction, rather than offering to make a constructive
change in the system. This is a picture of the entire Dominionist
movement in a nutshell!
I have an awareness that one chooses to
seek either truth or power. Not both. Our opponents have chosen
power. We have chosen truth. What's the end result of that? Historically,
does truth beat power? Hitler says NO! (But I hate leaving
him to decide anything!)
I have a deep seated grasp of some facts
that lead me to say: "Our side will prevail." I say
it and believe it in the face of the tidal wave, which I also
see and hear. But I hear other voices too: William James,
the great American psychologist wrote in one of his essays found
in a volume titled The Will to Believe:
“It is only
by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live
at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified
result is the only thing that makes the result come true.”
In other words, believe that we will prevail
in this cultural war and your belief will help create that fact!
But let’s not base our hopes on false beliefs or delusions!
So how do I know we will win? There are
at least five factors operating in our favor:
1) History
2) Psychological
Factors
3) An Edifice
of Lies
4) The
American Spirit
5)
Humility
1) History: Despotic rulers
fall from the weight of their own arrogance--their sense that
they are invincible brings with it the very opposite: weakness,
and an uncontrolled death wish. Jim Jones' story is extremely
relevant here. In the end, he destroys himself and his kingdom
voluntarily.
2) Psychological Factors: We are
dealing with psychological aberrations if not outright evil.
In Scott Peck’s book, The
People of the Lie, Peck calls evil a mental disease,
and labels it as “walking schizophrenia.” According
to Peck, the evil appear to look and act like most everyone else,
but they suffer on a daily basis. There greatest fear is that
their true nature will be revealed openly. It's a torment that
Peck can only hint at.
Just for a moment, take a look at the real
Mr. Bush. He constantly shows signs of weakness--not strength.
No leader has ever resorted to the use of so many protective
strategies. For instance he took over 250 Secret Service agents
to London for his visit with the Queen. (In contrast, Prince
Charles walked into a reception with just one body guard.) Mr.
Bush actually demanded to take down part of Buckingham Palace
and replace it with bullet proof windows, cement, and so on.
He wanted U.S. air force planes and helicopters to control the
air space over England. He takes his own cook with him everywhere. And
on his recent trip to Europe, he wore gloves when shaking hands
at a Russian reception. He insists that demonstrators be kept
a mile a way from him. He only speaks before pre-screened audiences!
Fear! Fear rules him. He is actually demonstrating cowardice.
3) An Edifice of Lies: a house built
upon the sand cannot last. A house of cards will fall. It’s
inevitable. The government that is being built by dominionism's
ethics and energy-- is a government that owes its success to
lies. Lies by their nature are temporary! Lies do not last! Falsity
is not eternal! Truth is!
It doesn't matter that a large portion of
people presently believe the lies. The truth will break through.
Our efforts—yours and mine will be heard! And will be felt. We
are in the process of creating a tsunami ourselves. A different
kind of wave: one tied to reality. Call it what you will--it
is the most powerful force on earth and we're part of it because
we cannot escape our sense of responsibility to yield our wills
to something higher than ourselves: we bow down to Truth-to Reality—the
very heart and soul of psychological health.
4) The American Spirit: whatever
we feel as we look in dismay at our nation’s citizens and
their apparent failure to rise up against this movement, we're
all part of a “Yankee” culture that cannot be so easily
subjugated. The American “Can Do!” spirit will erupt!
It is bound to. It cannot help itself. Yanks don't like to be
lied to. Once they find out the extent of this administration's
lies--watch out for an anger that will tear the movement apart!
5) Humility: In the end, humility
is stronger than power. The humble are mistakenly perceived as
“weak” by the evil. But the humble have learned the
power of no power. It is a strange phenomenon. When Alexander
Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned, he recognized that as long as he
was trying to maintain some power—whether it was for food,
clothing, or health—as long as he desperately wanted these
things—he was at the mercy of his captors. When he gave
them up and accepted and even embraced his own powerlessness,
then he became completely free; the power of his captors over
him stopped. And in the paradox of power—he became the powerful,
they the powerless. Once our side recognizes this and practices
it: all the power will shift to our side!
How to Fight Back: How to
Defeat the Hitlerian Tactics
I realize the power of the movement we are
facing. We cannot use Hit-ler-ian tactics ourselves. If we do,
we become like our opponents. The fact of the matter is--there
is only one technique that can effectively fight Hitler’s
“spiritual terrorism.” The traditional
weapon of choice is the “Sword of Truth.” We have to
learn how to become spiritual swordsmen! We need to realize that
we must slice away at every significant false statement made
in the public forum for the purpose of swaying public opinion.
For if we show that a statement is false, we expose the true
morality of the statement maker and the strength of their whole
system is diminished.
Our public forum has become debased with
lies—and no democracy can exist in such an environment.
The Dominionists have brought our nation to the brink of ruin—we
must snatch it back!
Where is Edward R. Morrow when we need him?
If our country’s newspapers and news media fail our nation
we need to stand in the gap. We must stand up to the onslaught
of lies that took our nation into war; we must expose the slander
and libel attacks by operatives of this Dominionist administration
and congress. We need to become part of a bi-partisan effort
to save our democracy. Call it what you like, we need Public
Forum Guardians in every community of America, who will release
information to the public and to the press and media from the
web, from bloggers, from the network of honest amateur reporters
who have sprung up all over this country, from those who are
standing in the gap to make up the hedge—lest our nation
fall.
As the Dominionists continually resurrect
the words, advice and techniques used by Hitler in WWII, let
us resurrect the words, advice and spirit of those who fought
Hitler and defeated him. Let us hear again the spirit from the
past that helped create the indomitable will that won that war:
We will fight them with Truth, we will fight
them with words; we will fight them with ideas, we will fight
them with songs, we will take our verbal fight to our neighborhoods
and to our churches. We will fight over the air waves, and we
will fight on the hills and valleys of the web. As Mr. Churchill
told us then, and it still rings with thunder down the pathway
of time, “We will never, never, never, never give up!”
Ladies and gentlemen, we will prevail!
We will prevail because we seek to preserve our constitution,
our freedom, our liberties and our democratic way of life!
Thank you very much.
[1] A Mission To 'Reclaim America' FORT LAUDERDALE,
Fla. March 16, 2005, From CBS and the Christian
Science Monitor This story was written by Jane
Lampman
https://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/MissionToReclaimAmerica.html