WP, Dionne: Culture Wars? How 2004; "The era of the religious right is over."

[DeepModem Mom]

Culture Wars? How 2004.
By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Sunday, March 9, 2008; B01

....The last long secular era endured from 1932 to 1980....

***

But the secular period that Kennedy spoke for ended with Ronald Reagan's election, the rise of the Moral Majority and the emergence of the Christian Coalition. If my theory is right, we will come to see this era of religious polarization as having lasted from 1980 to 2008. The era that is beginning will likely be more religious than the long post-FDR secular period. It's hard to imagine Obama, Clinton or any other Democrat giving a speech quite as relentlessly secular as Kennedy's Houston address. But compared with the period that is just ending, the new period will be more secular, more pluralistic and more focused on issues outside the cultural realm.

The era of the religious right is over. Even absent the rise of urgent new problems, Americans had already reached a point of exhaustion with a religious style of politics that was dogmatic, partisan and ideological.

That style reflected a spirit far too certain of itself and far too insistent on the moral depravity of its political adversaries. It had the perverse effect of narrowing the range of issues on which religious traditions would speak out and thinning our moral discourse. Precisely because I believe in a strong public role for faith, I would insist that it is a great sellout of those traditions to assert that religion has much to say about abortion and same-sex marriage but little to teach us about war and peace, social justice and the environment.

With the United States turning its attention again to very large, post-9/11 issues -- as our forebears did during the Depression, World War II and the Cold War -- we will certainly be asking for God's blessing and help. But the questions that will most engage us will be about survival and prosperity, not religion and culture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702847_pf.html

[kestrel91316]

1. It's gone on for most of my adult life, getting worse by the year.

Nothing would make me happier than for people to go back to being whatever religion they are in their PRIVATE lives and quit trying to force it on ME.

[Democrats_win]

2. Don't underestimate the audacity of false religion. They nominated Fornicator McCain.

Six years after Watergate they elected Ronald Regean who was a hateful man and divorced.

The only thing Republicans learned from Watergate is that they needed to hide their crimes better. This philosophy continues to this day as Bush's people refuse to testify to OUR representatives in congress.

If Democrats don't make major changes to our constitution, we will have another false religious Imperial Presidency. Imperial Presidents don't care about Americans so you can be sure that WE will engage in issues about "survival and prosperity," but THEY will continue to talk nonsense about religion and culture despite the fact that they are thee biggest sinners on earth.

[peacetalksforall]

3. Dionne went far with this. But, it doesn't address the Federalist Society

whose members have rewritten the Constitution and we haven't seen it yet - have only seen its aftermath - a political Justice system, a stacked deck with executive orders and signing statements. Balance of power is gone; Congress is for show.

[Joe Bacon]

4. Never underestimate the stupidity religion thrives on!

In 1980, all of my family voted Democrat (except me, I voted for Anderson, to my everlasting regret). BUT by 1984, they got infected en masse by Robertson, Falwell, Jim Bakker and their ilk that they all started going to Assembly of God Churches and mutated into Republicans. You cannot reason with them, all of them are obsessed with getting raptured by JC and his Sonshine Band. And, of course they are totally brainwashed by the Nazi hate propaganda spitting out from the pulpit about how all Democrats are evil and Republicans aren't. Yesiree, Larry Craig and Mark Foley can get down with all the boys they want and then they can get washed in the blood of Jesus so their souls are whiter than snow. And I just love how they whip out the old Curse of Ham to say that it isn't "Christian" to have a black man OR a woman as President, BUT they slobber over George Bush in the exact same manner as those kids kissed Bush ass in Jesus Camp.

The hatred and contempt that I have for "¢hri$tianity" just grows with each passing day. Religion REQUIRES stupidity and a closed mind to fester.

[Skittles]

8. YOU KNOW IT

ABSOLUTELY

[Forrest Greene]

5. Wouldn't It Be Nice

...if human beings could use human minds to address human problems, rather than waiting for the gaseous invertebrate superhero who lives in outer space to come through? Just askin'.

[Skittles]

9. it would be nice

but I have long ago accepted the fact that the overwhelming majority of humans seem to need to believe in an invisible being just to LIVE

[Hawaii Hiker]

6. I sure hope so, as I HATE the religious right w/a passion..What we really need

is to make sure EITHER Clinton or Obama makes the next Supreme Court appointments, so no more far right fucks get on the court....Keeping Scalia & Thomas' types off the court will do wonders for the First Amendment & will LESSEN the influence of the religious right even more.....

[tom_paine]

7. The fusion of forces that makes up the New Totalitarianism never die, never go away

and for Dionne to make such an assertion is like claiming the Religious Right component of nazism had peaked and retreated by 1936.

What else can I say? It is a struggle humanity has been fighting forever, the Authoritarian Sociopathic Monsters and their Gullible, Unquestioning Followers vs. the Other 80% of humanity.

Now the Authoritarian Sociopathic Monsters have, through the sciences of psychology, advertising, marketing and public relations (The Scienece of Lying; The Scienec of Creating False Realities; whatever you want to call it) gain access to the "mental nuclear bomb" that makes what Hitler and Stalin did to their countries through their owned media and propaganda look like kindergarteners playing mumbly-peg.

As a reults, that 20% has grown to 30 or 40%, as it did in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rouge, etc. And history has shown, that when the Socipaths and their Gullible Followers reach greater than 30%, it is more than enough to seize and take over a society.

More than enough. Dionne's article is just another example of the kind of wishful thinking prevalent in all societies going through the transition to being ruled by pure authoritarian evil that Amerika has gone through.

And it is as untrue as it must have been in Germany 1936.

Wishful thinking does nothing to stop Bushies and Nazis. Nothing.