Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Gee whiz

Well, well, well. I think I'm kinda back after a wild, whirlwind holiday season.
And did you know that the greatest threat America faces comes from the Christian Right?
I didn't know that until I read this article.
Chris Hedges works for the leftist The Nation Institute, so I suppose his take shouldn't be all that surprising.
But let's have some fun analyzing this, starting from the end.
That's where he describes Christian conservatives as "angry, disenfranchised Americans longing for revenge and yearning for a mythical utopia, Americans who embraced a theology of despair because we offered them nothing else."
Oh, but you have offered them quite a bit, Mr. Hedges. You have offered them scorn and abuse. You have offered them condescension and marginalization. You have told them that their principles, based upon their faith, are not welcome in the public forum. You have called their principles "old-fashioned" and "out of touch with reality." You have basically told them to shut the hell up.
What could you offer them? "Oh, let's give 'em jobs and then they won't have to turn to those nasty Christians." That's rather a Marxist approach to things, isn't it?
He also brings up the old canard of "Christian theocracy," which is intended to scare the daylights out of folks, and then lumps in "fascism," guaranteed to bring strong reactions.
This reveals a fundamental ignorance of reality. The Christian right is no monolith, marching in lockstep behind a single leader. It's a lot more diverse than the skin-deep "diversity" the Left loves to trumpet, all the while hiding the dirty little secret that ideological purity is mandated. The Left, of which Mr. Hedges appears to be a proud member, is far more fascist in its approach than the Christian right would ever become, and it demonstrates that fact with chilling regularity.
In a perverse sort of way, Mr. Hedges demonstrates in that closing paragraph the empty reality of his philosophical bent.
The "we" of which he speaks has nothing to offer, so it cannot offer anything.