The Christian Right and the War on America

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The Christian Right and the War on America

Via NY Transfer News Collective All the News that Doesn't Fit

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Democracy Now - Feb 19, 2007

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/19/1545218

[A new book by Chris Hedges called "American Fascists: The Christian Right

and the War On America" investigates the highly organized and well-funded

"dominionist movement." The book investigates their agenda, examines the

movement's origins and motivations and uncovers its ideological

underpinnings. "American Fascists" argues that dominionism seeks absolute

power in a Christian state. According to Hedges, the movement bears a strong

resemblance to the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s

and '30s.]

"American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America"

with Chris Hedges

Transcript:

Chris Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for many

years where he won a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of "War Is a

Force That Gives Us Meaning" and "Losing Moses on the Freeway." Chris has a

Master's degree in theology from Harvard University and is the son of a

Presbyterian minister. He is currently a senior fellow at the Nation

Institute - and he is here with me now in the studio.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the religious right and the rise of it in this

country. A new book by Chris Hedges is called American Fascists: The

Christian Right and the War on America. It investigates the highly organized

and well-funded dominionist movement. The book looks at their agenda,

examines the movement's origins and motivations and uncovers its ideological

underpinnings. American Fascists argues that dominionism seeks absolute

power in a Christian state. According to Hedges, the movement bears a strong

resemblance to the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s

and '30s.

Chris Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for many

years, where he won a Pulitzer Prize. He's also the author of War Is a Force

That Gives Us Meaning and Losing Moses on the Freeway. Chris Hedges has a

Master's degree in theology from Harvard University and is the son of a

Presbyterian minister. He is currently a senior fellow at the Nation

Institute and joins me in studio now. Welcome to Democracy Now!

CHRIS HEDGES: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Why did you write this book?

CHRIS HEDGES: Anger. I mean, I grew up in the Church and, of course, as you

mentioned, graduated from seminary, and I think these people have completely

perverted and distorted and manipulated the Christian message into something

that is the very antithesis of certainly what Jesus preached in the Gospels.

AMY GOODMAN: Who are "these people"?

CHRIS HEDGES: These are -- you know, they're not -- we use terms like

"evangelical" and "fundamentalist" to describe them, and I think that those

are incorrect terms. Traditional fundamentalists always called on believers

to remove themselves from the contaminants of secular society, shun

involvement in politics. Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham's always

warned followers to keep their distance from political power. He, of course,

was burned by Richard Nixon, came to Nixon's defense and then when it

publicly came out that Nixon lied, it taught a lesson to Graham.

This is a new movement, as embodied by people like James Dobson or Pat

Robertson or Jerry Falwell, who call for the creation of a Christian state,

who talk about attaining secular power. And they are more properly called

dominionists or Christian reconstructionists, although it's not a widespread

term, but they're certainly not traditional fundamentalists and not

traditional evangelicals. They fused the language and iconography of the

Christian religion with the worst forms of American nationalism and then

created this sort of radical mutation, which has built alliances with

powerful rightwing interests, including corporate interests, and made

tremendous inroads over the last two decades into the corridors of power.

AMY GOODMAN: Why the term "dominionist"?

CHRIS HEDGES: It come out of Genesis, you know, where God gives humankind

dominion over creation. It's articulated by ideologues, such as Rousas

Rushdoony, Francis Schaeffer and others, and essentially is a new concept

within the radical Christian right, and it's used sparingly. And some

dominionists don't like the term, but I think it denotes or is probably a

better term for denoting those people who want to take political power.

AMY GOODMAN: On the back of your book, Chris, is a quote from your professor

at Harvard, Dr. James Luther Adams, who said that in a few decades we would

all be fighting "Christian fascists." Who was he, and why did he think this?

CHRIS HEDGES: James Luther Adams was my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity

School. He had spent the years 1935 and 1936 in Germany working with

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Confessing Church or anti-Nazi church and

eventually was picked up by the Gestapo and told to leave the country. He

came back -- and this was in the early 1980s, when I was in seminary -- and

saw the articulation of this new political religion, this religion that

talked about seizing control of mainstream denominations, as well as

institutions, creating a parallel media empire through Christian radio and

broadcasting, and ultimately taking control of the government itself.

And he understood, in a visceral way, how when countries fall into despair

- -- of course, this began -- it was the time that began the assault on the

American working class, which has been accelerated and essentially left tens

of millions of people within our own country dispossessed -- he understood

how demagogues use that despair. And I think we can say there, in many ways,

has been a kind of Weimarization of the American working class. And he saw

what we were doing through globalization, what we were doing to our working

class and our middle class, coupled with the rise of these so-called

Christian demagogues, as a frightening and toxic combination, which, if left

unchecked, would destroy our democracy.

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you begin with Umberto Eco? And explain who he is.

CHRIS HEDGES: Umberto Eco is the great Italian writer -- I mean, he wrote

that very popular book, The Name of the Rose, and he had a nice little book

of essays called Five Moral Pieces, and in it he writes about the salient

qualities of what he calls "Ur-Fascism," or eternal fascism. And I wanted to

list those -- I thought it was probably as good a list as I'd ever seen

compiled on what the main tenets of fascism are -- to begin the book,

because my argument is that this is not a religious movement. Although it

certainly depends on the support of many earnest, well-meaning, decent

people who are religious, I would argue that they are manipulated not only,

of course, to be fleeced for their own money, but essentially to give up

moral choice and surrender to the authoritarian demands of these leaders to

march forward and essentially dismantle our democratic state. And I think

that when we look closely at what it is that this Christian right movement

espouses, it does bear many similarities to, you know, the main pillars of

fascist movements: the cult of masculinity, the war against --

AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, "the cult of masculinity"?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, the fact that, you know, they elevate male figures

within the megachurches, who cannot be questioned, who speak directly for

God. Any kind of questioning or self-criticism becomes essentially battling

the forces of Satan. That power structure is to be replicated in the family.

Much of this movement is about the disempowerment of women. Children have to

be obedient. And so, that power structure of the family with the dominant

male and everyone else submissive is replicated in the megachurches, which

oftentimes -- and I've been in many over the last two years -- revolve

around cults of personality.

When we look at the sort of empires that people like Pat Robertson run, you

know, this man is worth hundreds of millions, some people say up to $1

billion, surrounded by bodyguards, flying around on private jets, investing

in blood diamonds in Sierra Leone. He has rock star status. I mean, if

you've ever been to an event where he appears, people are weeping and want

to be touched by him. There is no question. He essentially runs a despotic

little fiefdom.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain the blood diamonds part.

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, he uses the money, which he takes from, really, people

who live on the fringes of American society and should not be mailing him

their checks, in all sorts of very dirty investments in Africa. And one of

them was essentially getting involved in the trade of diamonds essentially

for weapons that rend Sierra Leone.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Chris Hedges. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning

former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, went to seminary and

has written a number of books. His latest is called American Fascists: The

Christian Right and the War on America. We'll be back with him in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Chris Hedges. His latest book called American

Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. We were just talking

about Pat Robertson. I wanted to go back to that famous quote of his. This

had to do with foreign policy and the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

PAT ROBERTSON: You know, I don't know about this doctrine of

assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think

that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than

starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop, but this man

is a terrific danger. This is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let

this happen. We have the Monroe Doctrine. We have other doctrines that we

have announced. And without question, this is a dangerous enemy to our

south, controlling a huge pool of oil that could hurt us very badly. We have

the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise

that ability. We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you

know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the

covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.

AMY GOODMAN: Pat Robertson. Your response, Chris Hedges?

CHRIS HEDGES: That's a deeply Christian message, calling for assassination.

You know, I covered the war in Central America, and Pat Robertson and Jerry

Falwell came down to support the murderous rampages of Rios Montt in

Guatemala, the military dictatorship that were running death squads that

were killing 800 to 1,000 people a month in El Salvador, and, of course, the

Contras, whose main contribution in Nicaragua was walking into towns drunk

out of their mind, raping the women and killing the men and burning the

villages. And they describe these battles as essentially a war against

Satan, against Satanic forces, godless communism that had to be defeated.

There are no international boundaries in Satan's kingdom, if you look at it

from their ideology. I think that the kinds of the wholehearted support for

genocidal killers in Central America, which Pat Robertson was one of the

stalwarts, is a tip-off as to, you know, without legal restraints, what they

would like to do within our own borders.

And I think that the quote or the clip that you just played is a perfect

illustration of how dark the intentions of this movement is and how, if we

don't begin to stand up and fight back, if we believe that these people can

be domesticated and brought into the political arena where they will act

responsibly, we're very, very naive. And we should all sit down, and as

unpalatable as it is, and listen to Christian -- so-called Christian radio

and television to see the kinds of messages of hate and exclusion that they

are spewing out over the airwaves.

AMY GOODMAN: The quote of Jerry Falwell right after September 11th that

became quite famous: "I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists

and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to

make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way,

all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in

their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" He was speaking on September

13, 2001, on Pat Robertson's 700 Club program.

CHRIS HEDGES: That's right. And, you know, this is -- I mean, essentially,

when you follow the logical conclusion of the ideology they preach, there

really are only two options for people who do not submit to their authority.

And it's about submission, because these people claim to speak for God and

not only understand the will of God, but be able to carry it out. Either you

convert, or you're exterminated. That's what the obsession with the End

Times with the Rapture, which, by the way, is not in the Bible, is about. It

is about instilling -- it's, of course, a fear-based movement, and it's

about saying, ultimately, if you do not give up control to us, you will be

physically eradicated by a vengeful God. And that lust for violence, I think

that sort of -- you know, the notion, that final aesthetic being violence is

very common to totalitarian movements, the belief that massive catastrophic

violence can be used as a cleansing agent to purge the world. And that's,

you know, something that this movement bears in common with other despotic

and frightening radical movements that we've seen over the past --

throughout the past century.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about some of the meetings you attended, from the

Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation to the Evangelism Explosion that was a

seminar taught by Dr. D. James Kennedy?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, the Evangelism Explosion was a one-week seminar taught

by Kennedy, was about certifying people to be able to go out and teach this

conversion technique. And what was fascinating about it is how manipulative

and dishonest it was. You know, what they do is essentially they cook the

testimonies. They promise people that if they commit themselves to Christ,

they can get rid of the deepest existential dreads of human existence: the

fear of mortality, you know, grief, one of the -- we were supposed to read

testimonies. We would turn them into the teachers, and they would send them

back. And it was always about, you know, I have 100% certainty that I know

that if I die tomorrow, I will go to heaven. Or, I lost my son -- one of the

examples was -- in the war in Vietnam, but I don't grieve, because I know

I'm going to meet him in heaven.

And they talked about targeting people who are vulnerable. They used a

technique very common to cults. It's called love-bombing -- it's a term

taken from Margaret Singer -- where you -- three or four people go and you

sort of focus intently on the person and are fascinated by everything that

they say. You build false friendships. And eventually, of course, the goal

is to draw them into these megachurches.

This movement talks about family, but it is the great destroyer of family.

And I would stand up in these -- or I would be in these meetings and see

people stand up weeping, and they would be weeping for unsaved spouses or

children, because once you get sucked into these organizations, your leisure

time, your religious worship time, you end up becoming involved in groups,

you're essentially removed from your old community and placed into this

authoritarian community, where there is no questioning of those above you.

You're often assigned -- you're called a baby Christian when you first come,

and you're assigned spiritual guides to teach you to think and act in the

appropriate manner.

When I went to the National Religious Broadcasters Association in

California, the most interesting thing about it was how these radical

dominionists, these people who have built an alliance around the drive to

create a Christian state, have taken over virtually all Christian radio and

television stations. And there are traditional evangelicals who would like

to step back from this political agenda, and they have been very ruthlessly

brushed aside.

You saw it in the purging of the Southern Baptist Convention, when

essentially dominionists like Richard Land took it over in 1980. There were

many ministers who were very conservative and thought abortion was murder,

were no friends to sort of gays and lesbians, but they didn't buy into that

political agenda, which of course has been fused with rapacious capitalism.

I mean, this movement talks about acculturating the society with a Christian

religion. In fact, it's the inverse. What they've done is acculturate the

Christian religion with the worst aspects of American imperialism and

American capitalism. And there's that kind of uneasy alliance with many of

these corporate interests. But it serves their turn. I mean, when you're

creating the corporate state, it's very convenient to have an ideology that

says, "Don't worry. You don't need health insurance, because if you have

enough faith, Jesus will cure you. It doesn't matter if all of your jobs are

outsourced and there are no labor unions, because, you know, God takes care

of his own. And not only that, but God will make you materially wealthy."

This is, you know, the gospel of prosperity. So, essentially, what we've

seen is that fusion between those who want to build a corporate state and

this ideological movement that thrusts believers who come out of deep

despair into a world of magic and miracles and angels.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are the corporations that are part of this?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, DeVos, a guy who founded Amway; Target; Sam's Club. You

know, they bring in -- a lot of these corporations like Wal-Mart and Sam's

Club and others bring in these sort of dominionist or evangelical ministers

into the plants as a way to mollify workers. Subscribing to this belief

system is essentially about disempowerment.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Chris Hedges. He has written the book,

American Fascists. How does this fit into the race for president in 2008?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, certainly this movement has tremendous reach within the

Republican Party, Amy, and I think we could argue it all but controls the

Republican Party at this point. We see it with John McCain, who in 2000

called Falwell and Robertson "agents of intolerance" and is now sort of

falling all over himself to court this movement.

I think it's a mistake to think that George Bush somehow embodies the

movement. I think there's a great deal of frustration with Bush, remember,

on the issue of immigration, and there is a tension, an uneasy alliance

between these corporate interests and this radical movement, and I think,

you know, we should also say, as Robert Paxton points out in his book,

Anatomy of Fascism, that fascist movements always build alliances with

conservative or industrial interests, and oftentimes these alliances are not

seamless. But on the issue of immigration, Bush sided with the corporations,

who want illegal immigrants for cheap labor. There's a huge nativist

element, a huge hostility towards immigrants within the movement, and that

angered the Christian right.

I think they're going to go searching for another candidate -- maybe

Brownback, I don't know -- who they feel -- I mean, it boils down to the

fact that they feel Bush was not radical enough. And they're going to go

searching for a candidate that is going to swing further right, further

towards the radical agenda that they have at their core. And this clip from

Robertson, I think, is a public display of -- you know, unleashed how far

they would like to go.

AMY GOODMAN: Chris Hedges, Iran. Let's talk about Iraq, Iran, war, and what

you call the American fascists.

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, that's a really important point, because none of these

movements can take power unless there is a period of prolonged instability

or a crisis. They can make creeping gains, and they have made tremendous

gains, including taking hundreds of millions of dollars of American taxpayer

money through the faith-based initiative program. But I think, as weak as

our democracy is, we can hold them off, unless we enter a period of

instability.

From my reading of the Bush White House, I think there's a very strong

possibility that before the end of the Bush administration, they will make a

strike against Iran. I think that what they've done is -- or what Karl Rove

has done is essentially adopt a corruption of Leon Trotsky's notion of a

permanent revolution -- only, it's permanent war. Now, you know, the

military-industrial complex, which is making huge profits off the war in

Iraq, let's not forget, is essentially driving this administration. I think

these people live in an alternate reality. I think they really do believe

that they dropping cruise missiles and bunker busters and making

conventional air strikes against supposed sites that they've targeted in

Iran -- 700 to 1000, according to Sy Hersh -- will bring the Iranian regime

down. Having spent seven years in the Middle East, a lot of that time in

Iran and Iraq, I'm quite certain that they will have no more success in Iran

than the Israelis had in Lebanon.

The problem with striking Iran is that it has the potential to create a

regional conflict. I mean, we're already fighting a proxy war with Iran

through Hezbollah in Iraq -- there's no question that the Iraqi Shiites are

getting assistance from Iran and always have been -- and to a certain extent

with the conflict with Hamas, which probably gets some help from Iran, as

well. But a strike against Iran would be, in the eyes of Shiites throughout

the Middle East, a strike against Shiism. You have two million Shiites in

Saudi Arabia, many of whom work in the oil sector, Bahraini Shia, huge Shia

minority in Pakistan, and, of course, most of Iraq is Shia. And I think that

that kind of a hit would -- has the potential to unleash a regional

conflict.

I think we should remember that Iran does not have the conventional capacity

to do anything to the United States, but they could very well strike Israel,

especially. Of course, there's talk of Israeli involvement in some kinds of

air strikes. That would provoke a retaliation. Hezbollah would not sit by

quietly. I think that in sort of unconventional weapons -- I don't know what

those would be -- I mean, you know, Iran, it's an unprovoked attack. I mean,

under international law, Iran has a right to strike back, and I think that

they would. And that could really create a spiral, a kind of death spiral

that frightens me deeply. And I think what really frightens me is that no

one in the Democratic Party is speaking up, with the exception of Kucinich.

Nobody has spoken out against hitting Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about this latest headline that we read

today. You have, what came out in the last few weeks, reporters in Baghdad

getting this unusual briefing where there weren't allowed to name names or

even take in their video cameras, being told that Iran was supplying -- what

was it? -- highest levels of the Iranian government sending sophisticated

roadside bombs to Iraq that have killed 170 coalition troops since 2004. I

wanted to ask about Michael Gordon, your former colleague at the New York

Times, the person who was so-called breaking the story, who was deeply

involved with the weapons of mass destruction myths also in his writings

with Judith Miller, and now this latest today, the Iranian government

accusing the US and Britain of being involved in an attack last week that

killed eleven members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Start with Michael

Gordon.

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, that's probably the best reason to watch Democracy Now!,

rather than read the New York Times, about the war in Iraq. It's almost --

one's left sort of speechless. I guess it's proof that some people never

learn anything. I mean, I was on the investigative team and got briefly sort

of tarnished with that dirt. I was based in Paris covering al-Qaeda but did

get sucked into one of these sort of sham Chalabi stories.

AMY GOODMAN: Which one?

CHRIS HEDGES: It was the one where they supposedly had a defector in

Lebanon. It wasn't my story, but, I mean, it ended up -- you tend on

investigative units to work as teams. It was Lowell Bergman's story, which

was broadcast on Frontline, but he could not fly to Beirut to interview the

guy, so I did. But, I mean, it was my body. I was there. And --

AMY GOODMAN: Explain who he was, the person you interviewed?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, he was an impostor. Supposedly, he was a general, and he

was talking about training camps that were being run in Iraq for al-Qaeda. I

think it's been pretty well discredited. So I find it -- I mean, I find the

tactics -- and we see it, you know, ratcheting up with the rhetoric with

Iran. I mean, we see that they're familiar tactics and familiar lies. And

it's just stunning that people as bright as Michael Gordon buy into it. I

don't get it.

AMY GOODMAN: Of course, it's not just Michael Gordon. He writes the piece,

and then the institution of the Times, well, they put it on the front page--

CHRIS HEDGES: Exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: -- and they're the ones that make it the big exclusive story

based on unnamed sources. And it beats this drum for war.

CHRIS HEDGES: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: What will you do if the US attacks Iran?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, I'm not going to pay my income taxes. I just am in such

despair over the consequences of that war and the fact that there just

really is no -- seems to be no organized opposition. And I think that I have

a kind of moral responsibility as someone who comes out of the Middle East

and has, I mean, directly, you know, friends throughout the years that I

spent there who would suffer tremendously from that. And I sort of -- it may

not change anything, and it may be sort of futile, but I think that at least

when it's over, I'll have earned the right to ask for their forgiveness.

AMY GOODMAN: Christian Zionist Movement, how does it fit into this?

CHRIS HEDGES: Well, the relationship between this radical movement and the

radical right in Israel is one that really brings together Messianic Jews

and Messianic Christians who believe that they have been given a divine or a

moral right to control one-fifth of the world's population who are Muslim.

It's a really repugnant ideology. The radical Christian right in this

country is deeply anti-Semitic. I mean, look at what they -- you know, when

the end times come, except for this 144,000 Jews who flee to Petra and are

converted -- I think this was a creation of Tim LaHaye -- Jews will be

destroyed, along with all other nonbelievers, including people like myself

who are nominal Christians, in their eyes. You know, there is no respect for

Judaism in and of itself. It's an abstraction. It's, you know, Jews have to

control Israel, because that is one more step towards Armageddon. And I find

that alliance strange and very shortsighted on the part of many rightwing

Israelis and rightwing Jews in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: This latest story, the Anti-Defamation League calling on

Georgia State Rep. Ben Bridges to apologize for a memo distributed under his

name that says the teaching of evolution should be banned in public schools,

because it is a religious deception stemming from an ancient Jewish sect.

The memo calls on lawmakers to introduce legislation that would end the

teaching of evolution in public schools, because it's "a deception that is

causing incalculable harm to every student and every truth-loving citizen."

CHRIS HEDGES: And there's a bill now in the Texas state legislature that

will abolish all mention of evolution in school textbooks and make Bible

study mandatory in public schools. And the role of creationism is extremely

important in this movement. It's not just wacky pseudoscience. It is really

a war against truth. It is not about presenting an alternative. It's about

saying facts are interchangeable with opinions, that lies are true, that we

can believe whatever we want. And once they successfully elevate

creationism, which, of course, is a myth -- I mean, teaching creation out of

the Book of Genesis is an absurdity. The writers of the Book of Genesis

thought the earth was flat with rivers of above and below us. But what it

does is destroy the possibility or sanctity of honest, dispassionate,

intellectual and scientific inquiry. And when they do that, they have made a

huge step towards creating a totalitarian state.

AMY GOODMAN: Chris Hedges, I want to thank you very much for being with us.

Chris Hedges is the Pulitzer Prize-winning former foreign correspondent for

the New York Times, currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. His

latest book is called American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on

America. Thanks for joining us.

CHRIS HEDGES: Thanks, Amy.

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