Happy to Hate (Update 2 w/Correction and 2nd new video)

It appears there is no slur too foul, no mud too steeped in libel, for a desperate Republican to fling in order to stir "good Christian folks" to mindless anger. This ad from a sitting U.S. senator should be enough to bar her forever from office -- not to mention decent company.



And though the smear would be miles beyond the pale were Dole's opponent even an "godless atheist" Hagan is an elder in her church and a Presbyterian.

(An Anonymous reader has rightly criticized my excerpt dealing with the Soka Gakkai which is now amended. The Soka Gakkai was NOT excommunicated explicitly because of the fight over corruption but because the Buddhist clergy were opposed to a bill that the Komeito, a small political party the Gakkai supported, wanted to allow Japanese troops to take part in U.N. peacekeeping forces. I thank the reader for having me clarify the facts.)

According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center even though the world is facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression most Republicans claim that they are happy, and 37% even describe themselves as "very happy".

The study suggests that despite the fact that their party had become an object of scorn, their policies, soundly rejected, Republicans remain happier than Democrats and would "probably always will be". The researchers opine that this has something to do with the conservative Republican "worldview". But if the American "Right" is so much "happier" than the "Left" how does Pew account for the kind of ugliness we've seen at their rallies:



The Pew researchers might have been better served heeding Aldous Huxley.

"There are many people for whom hate and rage pay a larger dividend of immediate satisfaction than love. Congenitally aggressive, they soon become adrenalin addicts, deliberately indulging their ugliest passions for the sake of the 'kick' they derive from their psychically stimulated endocrines. Knowing that one self-assertion always ends by evoking other and hostile self-assertions, they sedulously cultivate their truculence.

And, sure enough, very soon they find themselves in the thick of a fight. But a fight is what they most enjoy; for it is while they are fighting that their blood chemistry makes them feel most intensely themselves. 'Feeling good,' they naturally assume that they are good. Adrenalin addiction is rationalized as Righteous Indignation and finally, like the prophet Jonah, they are convinced, unshakably, that they do well to be angry. "
-- Aldous Huxley, "The Devils of Loudun"

It is that conflict-addicted temperament, so valuable for breeding warriors and FOX News commentators, that has been bred in great abundance in the nooks and hollows of our American Red-lands. For these Limbaugh devotees the world is a dangerous, treacherous place that must be mastered by a Great White Father. And contrary to Nietzsche, who believed that Christianity creates humble slaves, Republicans willing to vouch for the premise of headship, see their husbands and fathers as representative manifestations of Jesus. No doubt when the Rev. Arnold Conrad, was delivering his invocation at a rally in Iowa he felt justified chastening God.

"I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain’s] opponent wins for a variety of reasons. And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens."

I understand the frustrated reverend's confusion. For a red-blooded male trained from a pup to idolize John Wayne's big dog swagger, the fact that America has become the greatest military power in the history of mankind not only proves that he was chosen to rule, it works on his warrior brain as an opiate and a much-needed aphrodisiac. When we try to explain how Rove and his minions have managed to hold men like Reverend Conrad even as America's influence is waning and we are facing a painful recession, Huxley's insight seems prescient.

In his letter to Orwell congratulating him on "1984", Huxley predicted that "within the next generation ... world's leaders will discover that conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience."

He was wrong only in that the mass "hypnosis" is not being induced by chemicals but through the constant stimulants being blasted from our television sets and hate-talk radio. Over the last thirty years our public air-waves have been bombarded by the most bombastic nationalist propaganda. From as early as 1953 the government has been busy experimenting with various methods of mass control.

Speaking before a national meeting of Princeton alumni, former CIA director, Allen Dulles, distinguished two fronts in the then-current "battle for men's minds": a "first front" of mass indoctrination through censorship and propaganda, and a "second front" of individual "brainwashing" and "brain changing."

But the CIA did not invent these methods. When it comes to using fear and aggression to win and hold followers nothing is as old and effective as religion. Nor is it confined to "slavish" Christians. For instance, when the Soka Gakkai, the largest lay organization of Japanese Buddhists, accused priests of the Nichiren Shoshu of succumbing to corruption, rather than ask why priests needed to stay in luxury hotels and drive expensive Italian sports cars, the press vilified the Gakkai as venal and heretical usurpers turning Japanese sentiment harshly against them.

"there are widespread negative feelings in the community towards Soka Gakkai engendered by...relentless negative campaigns against the organization by [Japan's] magazines."--The Australian Financial Review

"The Japanese public is constantly exposed to the headlines on the hanging advertisements in trains and subways... Even if you don't read them but just kind of notice the slander and gossip day after day, a negative image begins to develop and grow, and you start to become suspicious..."--Noboru Okaniwa

The Buddhists' internecine struggles pale when compared to the kind of warfare being waged by our homegrown zealots against those "godless city-liberals". There's nothing like some "good old time religion" for whipping up hate and having a good time doing it. For the faithful in Palin's 'America' little has changed in the past sixty years. Here's H.L. Mencken on how the clergy went about rousing our good small town Christian back in the '30's.

"It is a terrific job to ram even the most elemental ideas into him. But it is always easy to scare him. That is the daily business of the evangelical pastors of our Republic. They are specialists in alarms and bugaboos... [T]he American peasant of today finds it vastly easier to claw into heaven than he used to. It is sufficient now to hate the Pope, to hate the Jews, to hate the scientists, to hate all foreigners, to hate whatever the cities yield to. These hatreds have been spread in the land by reverend pastors. They are the essence of the new Christianity, American style."

It makes one wonder if the kind of healing this country again so desperately needs is even possible.



It is hard to perceive how those who show nothing but anger and disdain for their fellow citizens feel happiness. Maybe for Palin Republicans it is enough to believe that God loves them. But watching that second video I suspect that despite all the happy smiles, Democrats won't be happy until we've made up for these last eight years. Perhaps then we can ramp down the hatred and go back to loving each other for a change.

The Palin Pick and the Plot to End America

The Alaskan Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Even right-leaning pundits like "Morning Joe" were taken aback by Sarah Palin's apparent inability to name a single magazine or newspaper that informed her worldview. The assumption of most is that she must not read anything noteworthy. I doubt that is the case. She may indeed read Time or People on occasion but that is not what shapes her opinions, at least not the opinions of those who have propelled her to national prominence.

By in large, the forces behind Governor Palin view their roles through the prism of the Great Commission. They seek power not to represent the interests of those who elect them but to convert the country and then the entire world to Corporate Christendom. They have their own schools, businesses, radio and T.V. networks and news publications all dedicated to "the mission"--as described by the Sky/Angel Corporation

Our Vision:
To provide a global communications platform as an instrument of unity to equip the Body of Christ to fulfill the Great Commission.

Our Mission: To build and operate a global communications system as the most effective means of assuring that the Gospel will penetrate every nation, culture and people.

That is not to say they are merely Bible-thumping fanatics. They are much more dangerous than that because their ethics begin and end with that purpose. They feel no compunction against lying, cheating or stealing and those who disagree are conveniently dismissed as "non-Christians."

Ultimately, the Palinites see themselves as keepers of both the Christian heritage of the first century and our 17th century Puritans. They offer faint praise for the nation's Founders. For them democracy is the cause of all world problems because humans must be ruled solely by the "natural" laws of God. Palin Puritans see themselves as having been betrayed by the Bill of Rights and a Constitution flawed by a loophole created by America's original "liberals".

Pat Robertson: "The Constitution of the United States is a marvelous document for self- government by Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christians and atheistic people, they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society."

This is where we get to the really scary part. Remember how Sarah Palin winked at Charlie Gibson when she spoke about "why we hold elections"? The ascendancy of the Christian Right has coincided with their control of our voting machinery. As I have harped on for the last five years- the key executives in charge of the three largest voting machine companies in America are ardent supporters of radical Reconstructionism and right wing Christian Fundamentalism.

But it gets worse: Among the Palinites are those pushing for the destruction of the U.S. economy. "Reconstructionists celebrate economic and constitutional crises as opportunity. Howard Phillips, founder of the U.S. Taxpayers-turned-American Constitution Party, has anticipated that U.S. economic distress could eventually trigger a right-wing Christian revolution and takeover of government." See “Power Preying,” Adele M. Stain, Mother Jones, Nov/Dec 1995. Phillips observed that “The death of the Weimar Republic, the opportunity for the National Socialists to come up in the ‘20s, was the result of the fact that the people were hurt economically.”

Yesterday John McCain appeared to divulge what the right-wing Xtians have promised him with the Palin pick:



Do not laugh at Sarah Palin. She's as funny as the Spanish Inquisition. Here is what she told her Republican opponent after their debate for governor: "Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers, and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures, and policies, and I'm amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, 'Does any of this really matter?' "

We're about to find out.

Oh- and about what Palin reads... apparently "The New American", a magazine put out by the John Birch Society.

(courtesy of the Associated Press)

The Palin Personality, the Dark Side

It has now been revealed that Sarah Palin believes that a Kenyan pastor helped her become governor of Alaska. Thomas Muthee founded his ministry by initiating a witch-hunt against a woman he accused of causing car accidents through demonic spells.

In video footage of her speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God from June of this year, Sarah Palin describes how Pastor Muthee laid his hands on her when he visited as a guest preacher in late 2005.

"As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he’s so bold. And he was praying “Lord make a way, Lord make a way. And I’m thinking, this guy’s really bold, he doesn’t even know what I’m going to do, he doesn’t know what my plans are. And he’s praying not “oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor,” no, he just prayed for it. He said “Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that’s exactly what happened.”

Think about what Ms. Palin is saying. She is suggesting that she was anointed to be Alaska's governor because the Lord led this man she had never met to transfer his boldness to her so she would fulfill God's will. Everyone is a narcissist, to some degree. It is a healthy phenomenon when kept within the bounds of reason. But as we have seen with George W. Bush, those who claim to be acting on God's instruction are more likely suffering from a pathological disorder.

Narcissistic Personalty Disorder is characterized by an extreme lack of empathy. The narcissist regards and treats other people as objects to be exploited. The sufferer uses them to obtain his or her narcissistic 'supply'. The pathological narcissist believes that he or she is entitled to special treatment due to the grandiose fantasies with which they cocoon themselves from objective reality. The narcissist can lie without blinking because she is not self-aware. Her cognition and emotions are both distorted. It seems that, like George Bush, Sarah Palin fits the profile. So let's review:

1) An exaggerated sense of self-importance. "I didn't blink, Charlie" (when asked is she was ready to be vice-president despite having zero foreign policy experience). Fired Alaska's public safety commissioner for apparently refusing to fire her brother-in-law without cause.

2) Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. An in-home tanning bed. Claims her son is going to Iraq on a "mission from God."

3) Believes that she is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high status people. Chosen by God to be governor and is ready to be president if needed. Does not seek or require the press' approval.

4) Requires excessive admiration. Lied about her teleprompter malfunctioning at the Republican Convention (it didn't). Lied about the Bridge to Nowhere (lobbied for it). As governor, started an enemies list, naming her critics.

5) Has a sense of entitlement. Charged taxpayers to sleep in her own bed. As mayor, left Wasilla $20 million in debt for a hockey rink. Requested earmarks totally $27 million for a town with 5500 people. Spoke to a local librarian about whether there was an official procedure for banning certain books.

6) Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends. Compels sixteen-year-old pregnant daughter to commit to marrying an immature 18-year-old "redneck".

7) Lacks empathy. Cuts funding Alaska's Special Olympics. Denies that Polar Bears deserve to be protected from oil drilling and/or extinction.

8) Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of her. Claims that Barack Obama is jealous of her for stealing the spotlight.

9) Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes. Refuses to give press interviews until the media shows her proper deference. Delivered invective zingers against Obama with cheerful glee. Refuses to testify about possibly abusing her power as governor, despite having run on, and presently campaigning for, "open government".

Add it all up and I'd say we have a second coming of W. An individual who appears willing to say and do anything for power, including tearing apart her own family.

Palin believes she is fulfilling some grand cosmic destiny. I prefer Dick Cheney's description-- call it going to the "Dark Side."

Sarah and the Secessionists

"I'm delighted to welcome you to the 2008 Alaska Independence Party Convention. ... Keep up the good work!"

Those were the words of Sarah Palin for an organization whose founder, Joe Vogler, said in 1991: "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. ... And I won't be buried under their damn flag."

According to the LATimes, "The McCain campaign denies that Palin ever joined the AIP." However she addressed several of their recent conventions and her husband, Todd, was a registered AIP member from 1995 to 2002. The AIP leadership certainly considers her one of their own.

As you'll see towards the end of this video, AIP Vice Chairman Dexter Clark, speaking of Palin at the 2007 North American Secessionist Convention, states that she was an "AIP member before she got the job as a mayor of a small town -- that was a nonpartisan job. But you get along to go along. She eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, and well, I won't go into that." As you hear Clark goes on to urge AIP members to "infiltrate" the major parties.

Perhaps, Ed Koch said it best: "Palin to be vice president ... she's scary."

A Bad Disney Movie?

Matt Damon echoes the mayor eloquently:



I guess Matt, we're going to see how many Americans are either racist or crazy...

Palin: "Queen of Pork"?

While it is true that Governor Palin clearly "flip-flopped" on her support for "Bridge to Nowhere" when it comes to government earmarks in Alaska it's simply "business as usual". For a party that likes to bloviate that Democrats love the suck at the teats of big government, Alaska's Republicans grab the pork faster than they can wrap it, trade it or eat it.

Alaska costs the rest of us about $8 billion a year in federal expenditures. Granted it is a frontier state at the edge of nowhere but Alaskans get royalties from Big Oil and despite paying no state or consumer taxes currently have a budget surplus and a Permanent Fund of more than $39 billion. Yet, last year, as governor, Palin sought 192 million dollars from the Federal Government. If Senator Stevens is the "King of Pork" then Sarah Palin is the Queen of Bacon.

Sarah Palin's Quiet Queenmakers

When John McCain announced he was picking Sarah Palin, a neophyte 1st term governor from Alaska he made two groups ecstatically happy: the oil lobby and the Council for National Policy. Sarah Palin is "an American Margaret Thatcher" crows way-the-winds-blow, Dick Morris

So just who is the CNP and what are their goals? Well, superficially, the organization claims to be a group of social, economic and religious conservatives formed to provide a "counterweight" to Washington's "liberal" institutions and the Rockefeller's Council on Foreign Policy. But a look at the top names among their membership reveals that they are the coalescence of the hard Religious Right and the John Birch Society. If all of this is new to you then that's just the way the Council intended it.

CNP policy states:

“The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting."

The membership list is “strictly confidential.” Guests can attend only with the unanimous approval of the organization’s executive committee. Members can be banned for referring to the council by name, even in e-mail messages.

New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick was finally able to pierce the CNP veil in August of '04 when he attended a gathering of the group in New York City just before the Republican convention, where the organization presented former Senator Bill Frist with the “Jefferson Award.”

The Times described the CNP as consisting of “a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country” who meet “behind closed doors at undisclosed locations…to strategize about how to turn the country to the right.”

The Council was not satisfied with the '08 slate of Republican candidates. It seemed even flat-earther Mike Huckabee was considered too liberal, both for the religious conservatives and their allies among the neocons. They would vote for McCain but if he wanted their full support he had to pick a V.P of their choosing.

THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR PRIVATIZATION

The council is tied to an earlier group founded by Willard Garvey, (No Relation!) the National Center for Privatization [NCP]. Its 1986 Board of Directors included Garvey and Robert D. Love, a founding member of the council for The John Birch Society who, according to a JBS publication cited by The Belmont Brotherhood, was "a Thirty-second Degree KCCH Mason, a member of the Median Shrine." 4.

The purpose of Garvey's group was "to educate Americans about the then-new concept of 'Privatization'".

It's manifesto stated: "the foremost objective of the National Center for privatization is to encourage by all practical and legal means, the transfer of activities and responsibilities now being funded with coerced tax dollars, to the private profit and voluntary sector of the economy."

In 1984, Willard Garvey wrote a letter to the President which described the objective of the National Center for Privatization -- non-profit organizations and the private sector must render the cumbersome machinery of representative government obsolete! Garvey's letter [see below] was published in a media promotion for an International Conference On Family Choice/Educational Vouchers that was sponsored by the NCP on Sept. 30-Oct. 2 of 1985. Speakers for the "Privatizing Education" conference were members of the secretive Council for National Policy -- namely James Dobson, Tim LaHaye and Phyllis Schlafly, and also free market economist, Milton Friedman and Secretary of Education, William Bennett.

6 April 1984

President Ronald Reagan
Executive Office of the President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington , D.C. 20500 Re: Privatization

President Reagan, congratulations on rejecting the political system negatives. Now why not adopt the all positive system -- privatization? Hold a White House conference on Privatization and appoint a Presidential Task Force on privatization.

Privatization is documented in the enclosed paper from the Heritage Foundation and dates back at least to Adam Smith, Plato, Aristotle and Jesus.

Privatization's more recent advocates include most of the non-profit sector-- and the entire profit sector. To name a few, Peter Drucker, Milton Friedman, Heritage Foundation, Reason Foundation, Pacific Institute, Manhattan Institute, National Legal Center for the Public Interest, VOLUNTEER -- National Center for Citizen Involvement, International Executive Service Corps, United Way with its Services Identification System, churches, labor unions, etc.

Privatization is now "an idea whose time has come" The knowledge, communication, and computer industry can make political representatives obsolete!

Privatization might well be the theme for the 200th anniversary of the Constitution. Privatization is essential for national salvation.

To restore privatization is the National Center for Privatization's purpose. May we help you?

With best wishes,

Willard W. Garvey

WWG:ks

Encl: Heritage Foundation paper
National Center for Privatization brochure

Chief among the leadership of the Council for National Policy is Richard Viguerie who pushed for Palin's selection.

Richard Viguerie, Godfather of the Reactionary Conservative Movement

Viguerie started his own direct mail fundraising company, RAVCO, now Viguerie Communications, using Barry Goldwater mailing lists. In 1970s, he did fundraising for Paul Weyrich's Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, and in 1976 ran for the presidential nomination of the neo-fascist, Klan-infested American Independent Party (AIP) of George Wallace. In 1975, he created The Conservative Caucus (TCC) with Howard Phillips.

In 1986, Viguerie was rescued from near bankruptcy thanks to earning an account for distribution of the Unification Church-owned Insight magazine. In 1987, Bo Hi Pak, a former Korean military-intelligence officer and Moon's top U.S. operative, paid $10.06 million for Viguerie's office building. Also, in 1987, Viguerie became Secretary of the Moon-controlled American Freedom Coalition (AFC), an alliance of political conservatives and conservative religious groups and individuals. In this position, Viguerie mailed millions of letters appealing for funds to lobby aid to the Contras and promote Oliver North's testimony before Congress.

Viguerie's past and present clients include: NCPAC, The Conservative Caucus, Christian Crusade, Korean Cultural Freedom Foundation (Rev. Moon), Gun Owners of America, YAF, Free Congress Foundation and numerous election campaigns. Among his wealthy contributors are right-wing billionaires Joseph Coors and William Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt.

Viguerie described his conservative brethren as being "cranky" over the choice of McCain and boasted his success in forcing Palin onto the ticket: "Some folks raise questions about John McCain's health, but we know one thing about his health: His hearing works just fine."

In case any of us are inclined to think the hard right will not back McCain/Palin 100% here's what Viguerie client and fellow Council member said about supporting George W. Bush in 2000:
"the Bush campaign apparatus is doing its best to suppress conservative activism." Bush had apparently not spoken with sufficient fervor against abortion and refused to establish an antiabortion litmus test for his running mate and judicial appointees. Weyrich went on to threaten that "Bush will fail to fire up the social conservative activists he needs to carry him on to victory"

Weyrich was blowing smoke, and thanks to the Supremes, we all know how that turned out. But make no mistake the real heavyweight backing Sarah Palin is Big Oil and in particular, Koch Industries, (the Council's secret underwriter and Birch Society co-founder). They'll even pretend she was against them before she was for them.