Guest blogged by Frank Schaeffer
Sarah Palin’s memoir is a perfect metaphor for what ails America and the Republican Party. Her book is published by the Zondervan publishing house, formerly an evangelical family-run religious publishing powerhouse now owned by Rupert Murdoch. (Back in the day my family’s and many evangelical leader friend’s books helped put Zondervan on the map, this was when I was a young religious nut activist in the 70s). Palin’s book was ghostwritten by the editor of the far, far loony right fundamentalist World magazine founded by Marvin Olasky (of which more in a moment). The book will get a big boost from ratings-seeking Oprah. Murdoch… Oprah… far right politics… The advance was paid out of the huge profits Murdoch made off Rick-stop-gays-prop-8-Warren’s Purpose Driven Life.
The chief characteristic of Palin’s book is her trashing of the old cautious and respectable William F. Buckley-style Republican Party in general and John McCain and his campaign in particular, an act of backstabbing right up there with the “Et tu Brute” assassination of Caesar. I should say it is actually the second characteristic, that comes a distant second to the building of a Sarah Palin cult of personality, wherein Jesus and Sarah will “take America back for God.”
As a former Republican, religious right activist who saw the light, re-registered as an independent voter and then, in the last election cycle, worked hard to get then Senator Obama elected, and having been one of the instigators of what is now becoming the bomb-throwing wing of the former Republican Party — now a far right fundamentalist cult — I understand better than most that Palin’s book is her bid to take over the Republican Party, something like Oprah’s positioning herself as the doyen of publishing.
It’s personality cult time, personality cult with an agenda. The agenda isn’t about politics at all. This is about naked power. Welcome to the world of our home grown very own Evita Perón. Welcome to Act II of the American “Reconstructionist” movement to establish a theocracy. The theocrats now have their Joan of Arc…
What is Sarah — Evita — Palin/Jesus about? Let’s just call her the new face of Lipstick Fascism.
And who is standing between us and Sarah’s burning desire to BE somebody? President Obama, that’s who.
Problem is President Obama has “friends” who seem more like enemies every day: the impatient juvenile left is already trumpeting his “failure” because he hasn’t fixed everything in one whole year!
But back to Palin: If the results in upstate New York are any indication she’s all about eliminating the Republican Party to replace it with a disjointed hard right cult of personality/theocracy.
This is the “party” of “Obama must fail” ideology and “Jesus saves!” everyone but gays, blacks and other “Not Real Americans.”
Here’s a woman whose husband associated closely with the Alaska secessionist party, which itself associates with lunatic fringe secessionist groups and far right militias nationwide. Here’s a woman who stabs John McCain in the back, the man who brought this small town mayor and one time Alaska Governor to national prominence. Here’s a woman who quit the job of governor to become a full-time rabblerouser in the style of a Munich 1930s of beer hall putsch.
And what’s her backing? The Rupert Murdoch/Reconstructionist Empire, the marriage of hard right capitalism with harder right Old Testament would-be theocracy.
Without Fox News she’d be nothing. Without the 5 million Murdoch paid her for her book she’d be stuck scraping by on $100,000 speaking fees. Without the millions of evangelicals who are Fox News’ audience Fox would not exist. And who ghosted the book for her?
Lynn Vincent, the features editor of World, a fundamentalist flagship magazine. Vincent also ghost wrote the memoir of Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, the former head of the Army’s Special Forces Command, who believes that his job in the U.S. military was to defeat Satan for the Christian nation of America.
Of our enemies in Somalia, Boykin said, “I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” And why does the world hate us? “We are hated because we are a nation of believers.” And how do we defeat terrorism? “[W]e come against them in the name of Jesus.”
Vincent has authored several columns bashing gay men and lesbians as “abnormal” and “devian[t].” Vincent laments the American Psychiatric Association’s decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder. Vincent also co-authored Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current, 2006) with Robert Stacy McCain, a book that; “documents the tragic story of how the nation’s oldest political party has inspired, then cruelly betrayed, the hopes of millions of Americans, including many of our friends and dear members of our own families — as well as sincere and honest officials within the party itself.”
On Page 100, Vincent and McCain wrote:
And what about the founder of World magazine? Marvin Olasky the editor in chief is a far right Reconstructionist who has been working to more or less turn America into a theocracy ever since the late 1980s and early 1990s. The 16-book Turning Point Christian Worldview series was largely funded by far right banker-fortune Howard Ahmanson, Jr.’s Fieldstead Institute, which champions the cause of “total integration of Biblical law into our lives.” (Ahmanson once donated 150,000 to one of my far right projects in the early 80s).
Ahmanson funded four of Olasky’s 30 books, and Michelle Goldberg, author of the book Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, places Olasky in a crucial role to Christian reconstructionism and dominionism, saying “I’m not sure whether he actually identifies himself as a Christian reconstructionist, but he’s very close to Christian reconstructionism.”
Olasky — someone who used to be a big fan of mine and my late father and quoted Dad and me often when I was a religious right leader — was an adviser on Bush’s first Presidential campaign, influencing Bush and the Republican Party.
Christian Reconstructionism as a movement is something philosophically like Bible-inspired totalitarianism/theocratic neofascism. Karen Armstrong sees this potential for fascism in Christian Reconstructionism, as does Max Blumeanthal. The system of dominion envisaged by Christian Reconstructionist theologians R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North is totalitarian. Many others put my late father in the same camp, though I don’t.
So now we have it: a far right operative who — with the help of a ghost writer who believes that Roosevelt was a secret communist and that gays will burn in Hell — trashes the Republican Party for her own personality cult agenda, was “blessed” by a preacher who cast out “witches” before she ran for governor, who claims in her book the “God’s hand” has been on her “every step in the way”, and that she’s going to “fulfill” destiny. She’s funded directly via the huge advance by Murdoch and is coached by the Olasky/reconstructonist wing of the hard right.
The circle of power, money, loony theology and greed closes. McCain is thrown to the dogs. Oprah cashes in. Welcome to America.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
Sarah Palin is a manufactured distraction.
She sounds like the anti-christ to me.
Too funny….
The woman who has never read a book; now has a book out.
You gotta love it…
Biblical law is not much different than Sharia law if you go back to the Old Testament. Jesus was against those oppressive laws. His laws were simple, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself”, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, “Judge not lest ye be judged”. There was no stoning for fetching wood on the Sabbath or even for adultery!
When do any of these folks turn the other cheek? Have they read the New Testament? Especially the parts that are about Jesus? Armies for Jesus should kill just as many people as Jesus did. (none, … for those of you who haven’t read the Book)
Oh, and he threw the money lenders out of the Temple.
What utter crap.Sarah Palin is not a theocrat. I look forward to buying her book and reading it.
If she is not a theocrat, what is she?
Don’t cha know?
She is darling of the Republican New World Order religious right criminal fck establishment who run the country and their US mass media propaganda machine.
Just the idea that the book of this pathetic backstabbing beoch’s is receiving multiple story promotion on the likes of Yahoo news search engine getting her name out there for a future White House run in the next presidential election gets me sick.
Of course what doesn’t receive this extensive media campaign is the book or recent documentary by former CA prosecuter Vincent Bugliosi presenting damning evidence to support the prosecution of former President George W. Bush for murder. This man had a 93% conviction record evidences that Bush and his administration lied this country into war in Iraq.
The good news is that more and more people are quietly noticing and catching on. Conspiracy theorist questioning the official gov version of assassinations of important figures in the 60’s were ridiculed as a crazy until the advent of the internet has helped break this US mass media monopoly on information and unite alternate positions.
The 9-11 controlled demolition bombings sacrifice of 3000 Americans (www.ae911truth.org), the trillions of US tax dollars spent on the never-ending war machine’s on terror by the military industrial complex and their sellouts in Congress cracked the wall. Bush era anti-enviro oil/coal barons legally raping the wilderness, and multi-national bankers on Wall Street who got their millions back after destroying the economy have caused a subtle wake-up.
I think the real challenge is reaching people who say they are open minded but refuse to even look at evidence that is contrary to their programmed narrative. That and reaching the young college aged intellectual demographic is key to ending the war and taking down WHITE ALQAIDA.
Palin = Bush with teats
Damail when your finished reading it
you can put on the shelf with your only other book,”My pet goat.”
All they have is the 3 G’s, Communism and fear.
It’s been the party platform since the 1860’s.
Why change now?
I’m curious if Mr Schaeffer has any take on the involvement of the Moon loon dynasty and their efforts to misinform the American public?
Damail wouldn’t recognize a theocrat because Damail never took civics in school or slept thru those classes. he would never be able to understand the importance of the “Separation of Church and State” doctrine.
Damail @5
Sarah Palin as Theocrat ?
Well Sarah Palin actually doesn’t know she’s a theocrat. She just thinks she’s all mavericky and rogue. What her handlers do know is that her base is theocratic to the bone. If Sarah Palin ever got any national office and power…her base would make her more theocratic than the Ayatollah.
Sarah Plain is drunk with the desire for power…her power lies with the fundamentalist christians. She’ll pander to them like children pander to Santa Claus.
Hence; Sarah Palin=Theocrat
“Palin = Bush with teats”
That’s been my contention from her first introduction to the national stage. She is painfully incurious, marginally intelligent, an ideological bent, etc. She would have been just as big a dupe as W became for the neo-cons.
lol, at first I thought #1 was the insurance salesman from “Groundhog Day”…sorry.
Ed is absolutely correct, how else are they going to continue to pick our collective pockets without these distractions.
Remember how the corporate mainstream media didn’t cover this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sixDDLSN46s&feature=player_embedded
Palin’s “book” comes with a pre-printed “80% off” sticker, like Hannity’s & Coulter’s books.
Wow, I am not sure if that picture of Palin is photoshopped and I guess I don’t care but it made me laugh.
Big Dan, thanks for dropping that link in here. That was a chilling piece of reality.
Also, thanks to Frank for an excellent piece.
To compare Palin to the leftist/fascist/communist Evita and her corrupt husband is showing the left has run out of attacks and have to REVISE history to start making things up. Evita is more in line with your friends on the left, such as Obama, Hilary, Bill, Biden, and other kooks. Palin is a cosnervative.. The above mentoned Democrats are the real fascists. Get it straight you morons.
AGAIN!!!!!!!!!
FOX “news” doctors footage to make Palin’s book signing appear bigger:
http://rawstory.com/2009/11/again-fox-news-footage/
Hannity just “apologized” for doctored footage, what, less than a week ago????????
Sam: you’re misguided, if you think Obama, Hillary, Biden, and Bill are “left”. You don’t know what “left” is, then. Also, you don’t know what a conservative is, if you think Palin’s a conservative. Ron Paul is a conservative. Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, and Noam Chomsky are liberals.
Are you saying Obama/Hillary/Bill/Biden are the same as Chomsky/McKinney/Nader/Kucinich???
COME ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You and Andrew Sullivan with his Christianists. Spot on, Frank.
“Damail wouldn’t recognize a theocrat…Sarah Palin doesn’t know she is a theocrat…”
Dumb and dumber statements. I know fully well who theocrats are, and nobody in American politics sounds even remotely close to what the Taliban or the Iranian mullahs stand for.
“Her base would make her theocratic than the Ayatollah…”
Utter lie. You back that statement up with nothing, because there is nothing that could back it up.
Actually, I have seen this silly trick before; the left essentially tries to define theocracy downwards. It doesn’t work.
At this point Palin’s just cashing in with her ghost-written book tour. It’s not serious politics.
This idea of Sarah Palin as EVITA was perfectly presented by Naomi Wolf before the election… even using the phrase… THe Battle Plan II.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/the-battle-plan-ii-sarah_b_128393.html
It’s just as true today as it was then.
Robert
Just got done reading Wolf’s gut-busting piece from Huffpo. I haven’t read such goofy paranoid claptrap since Sherman Skolnick’s rantings.
Damail –
I feel like I’m talking to a high school senior who thinks they actually know something. The Evita comparison is not about the politics or the policies – it is about the CULT. A CULT that ultimately has no goal other than its own shameless self-promotion. Obama’s “minions” were derided by the right (and sometimes the left) as being part of a cultish mentality, and perhaps they were, but the vast difference was that they actually had something substantial to hang onto in Obama.
Palin offers nothing except a smarmy smile and a sociopath’s stare. This picture sums up a potential Palin presidency.
Damail,
The question Palin was never required to answer in public was this:
What is the importance of the separation of church and state doctrine in the formation of this nation, and how do you reconcile this foundational doctrine against your publicly proclaimed evangelical beliefs?
There IS a powerful group of evangelical church persona who sincerely desire to use American power and influence to bring about their rapture.
This group is well monied and very quiet. But Mr Schaeffer knows them well, having preached and written for and led them for most of his life.
Mr Schaeffer points out the money trail that IS backing Sarah Palin’s public adventures and connects it directly back to these groups.
In your closed minded approach to conservative politics, you refuse to see the forest for the trees.
You should also read David Brock for the other side of that group’s power quest. The Arkansas group was very real, and very good at what they did. Poisoning the American mind to believe that all things Democrat were evil and immoral.
Mr Brock was a leader in that movement.
Open your eyes DaMail. The evidence of a conspiracy to subvert America is vast. And it really does originate from the political right. And it made an immoral pact with evil that masquerades as Christianity.
David Brock was a leader in that movement…”
And now instead of being a right-wing hatchet man, he is a left-wing hatchet man, so it’s all good, eh? Brock and his group Media Matters are masters at twisting stretching and lying news and events.
This “subvert America” conspiracy is a pack of lies.
If, by Hatchet, you mean exposing the lies and conspiracies hatched by the GoP and subsequently hijacked by the conservative Christian block, to whom the GoP sold their soul in their quest for power, then yes.
The truth is always uncomfortable to those who live by deception.
At least Sarah Palin is a looker, unlike those shrill and weathered old hags like Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, who represent the female face of the Democrat party.
“The evidence of a conspiracy to subvert America is vast. And it really does originate from the political right.”
Y’know, Hillary Clinton once said the same thing about the investigation into her husband’s infidelities, something about a “vast right wing conspiracy.”
Wow, didn’t she look silly when the investigation turned out to be true with no one to blame but Bill himself.
Wow. David Black is not only a racist, but also a sexist. Whooda guessed it?!
Btw, Hillary Clinton was, of course, absolutely correct. If you’re unaware of the “vast rightwing conspiracy” which spent millions in a vain and anti-American attempt to remove her husband from office, that would be because you have likely lost all ability to be honest with yourself, or anybody else, about anything.
At least your ugly comments here at The BRAD BLOG (as seen, for example, in this comment thread) would suggest as much.
—Matt Taibbi on the subject….
[ed note: Filthy comment deleted. –99]
“The truth is always uncomfortable to those who live by deception…”
Then both David Brock and Keith Olbermann must need some powerful sedatives to sleep at night.
Palin’s book comes with bag of nuts at Santa Cruz bookshop
By Shanna McCord
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Posted: 11/19/2009 10:34:07 AM PST
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13824520?source=most_viewed
Army Relents, Allows Media To Cover Palin Event
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/20/army-now-allowing-media-t_n_366199.html
Palin Booed By Book Tour Crowd
The Huffington Post | Lila Shapiro
First Posted: 11-20-09 04:45 PM | Updated: 11-20-09 06:51 PM
DailyKos put together a compilation reel of local news coverage:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/20/palin-booed-by-book-tour_n_365883.html
For Keith Olbermann? Who cares.
For David Brock, the prescription was to stop spreading lies.
What’s your excuse?