On Thursday, 25 February 2010, I sat down for an interview with Mr. Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org. Mr. Weinstein is, according to his bio, “the undisputed leader of the national movement to restore the obliterated wall separating church and state in the most technologically lethal organization ever created by humankind; the United States armed forces. Described by Harper’s magazine as the constitutional conscience of the U.S. military, a man determined to force accountability.” I would like to again thank Mr. Weinstein for taking time out of his very busy schedule to talk to me, and I apologize in advance for any remaining typos.
PNC: I’d like to begin by asking you about the incident at the Air Force Academy. Now as I understand it, it was a client of yours who saw the cross propped against the rock at the circle of stones. This was reported and the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) began an inquiry but I haven’t read much about it recently. Has the incident created any tensions in the community or in the Air Force Academy itself? Did the cadets take it in stride?
MW: We were upset at first that it took two-and-a-half weeks before our client, Tech. Sgt. Longcrier, who heads the earth-centered/based group up there, was even interviewed by the OSI. And of course we got involved because we felt that there have been a number of communication gaps. And initially we were very pleased, then we were very upset and now we’re back to thinking things are moving along. But look, it’s going to be very hard to have any clues about who did that; very, very difficult.
Tensions? Yeah! You’ve got people in the world who say the academy should never even have accommodated the earth-centered Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, what have you faith groups there. We were also reached out to by Native American spiritualists because they’re saying you know we’re earth centered also and we greatly predate Christianity, Judaism, Islam and many current Pagan groups who’ve been around for a long time.
And so I think it was great that this was accommodated but at the same time there shouldn’t be too many gold stars out there. I mean, People have a right to practice whatever faith they want to.
So in this instance we refer to this a hate crime. And this upset I’m sure a lot of Christians who said, “Well wait, it was just a cross.”
And our response is: “Yeah, well what would happen if you put a pentagram on a church, or put a crescent moon on a church, or put a crucifix on a mosque, or put a swastika on a synagogue?”
But people are just not smart enough to understand those things. I think we are moving along in a better fashion now and certainly when we broke the story we clearly significantly sensitized everybody and so I think that from that perspective – although it’s unlikely we’ll catch who did that – we’ve made it clear that the stakes are high if you try that again.
PNC: So nobody had the courage of their convictions and stepped forward and was anxious to claim responsibility.
MW: No, not at all.
PNC: No instant martyrs there.
MW: Right. We had people argue, “Well we just thought it was a campfire,” which is just complete and total crap. So we think we stand in a better position now and the cadets that are part of this group – Sgt. Longcrier leads it – I think feel emboldened and like I said before we want that worship place – it’s just like a church or mosque or synagogue or what have you – and it needs to be treated with the absolute same level of respect.
The problem is that there is a tremendous dearth of education about the Constitution in our U.S. military – among our officers, NCOs, cadets and midshipmen. They just don’t know what they don’t know and that’s very, very dangerous.
If you think of the military with all of our nukes, conventional and laser-guided weapons – if you think of it as a civilization – and I love to use H.G. Wells’ definition of civilization, which is “a race between education and catastrophe” – and catastrophe is currently winning in the U.S. Military. This is has been the case for humanity. Whether it’s trying to fight a disease or prejudice – which is another form of a disease – or what have you, the concept of the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution – which by the way represents the first time in the history of human kind that any nation state created a governing document that does not invoke somebody’s particular deity .
That by itself is education but it’s being re-framed by the Christian nationalist historians that are out there that argue that Franklin and Thomas Paine and Madison and Jefferson were all fundamentalist Christians and they really wanted this country to look like an enlarged version of the “700 Club.”
PNC: It’s amazing that even confronted by the facts, for example Thomas Paine’s writings about Christianity and his opinion of it…
MW: And Jefferson composed a Bible devoid of any miracles. It’s very likely he was an atheist and most of them were deists or agnostics and they looked assiduously at European history where most of the tyrannies that had occurred there were by men in political power or by men of the cloth. They looked at Cromwell in England; they obviously didn’t even have to leave our shores: They looked at the Salem witch trials and said “Not here.”
PNC: What do you think about claims like that made by the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission which claims that Christianity is under attack and that “a violent anti-Christian spirit is growing in America.”
MW: This reminds me of the famous plea by the young man who has murdered his parents: He’s in court and has now been found guilty and upon sentencing he throws himself upon the mercy of the court and goes: “Please your honor, please, have mercy, after all I’m an orphan.” Or if you will the playground bully who after beating a poor kid into the dust is caught by a teacher monitor and says, “This kid has put bruises and scrapes on my fists.” I hardly find them to be the aggrieved party; that the poor Christians are under attack here. First of all let’s keep in mind who we are fighting.
Our foundation is in a battle, a war with a subset of Christianity just as we are at war with a subset of Islam. We are not at war with all of Islam though that’s the way it’s portrayed by the Christian fundamentalists. I’m sure you’re familiar with the term that “if not you need to be.” We are at war with Wahhabist fundamentalist Islamic extremists who are trying to impose Sharia Law on the rest of us.
We represent over 16,300 active duty Unites States Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, cadets and midshipmen at the three major service academies – the Air Force Academy, West Point, Annapolis – and ROTC cadets and midshipmen, reserve and Guard units, Coast Guardsmen and vets.
96% of our clients are believers in Jesus Christ. They’re either Protestants or Catholics. About three-fourths of that 96% are Protestants of a complete rainbow of different denominations, including something like 21 varieties of Baptist. One-fourth of the 96% are Roman Catholic. Most of our staff are Christians; most of our supporters, most of our donors.
So for people to say me or our foundation is anti-Christian we consider that to be defamation because that’s like saying we’re anti-Islam because we’re fighting Wahhabist fundamentalists. We’re fighting a subset of Christianity with a long technical name and it’s known as: Pre-millennial Dispensational Reconstructionist Dominionist Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity – it’s about 12.6% of the American public. They are like mirror images of the Islamic Taliban and al Qaeda . This is like the fundamentalist Christian Taliban.
PNC: Yes, they’ve been referred to on the Internet as “Talibengelicals.”
MW: Yes, that’s it exactly. So if you’re going to say Christianity is under attack, no sorry. The sad part of this story is that maniacs like these people are very generous with their money and their time. The vast majority of Americans who are Catholics or Protestants are not. They sit back or they pull lint out of their belly button, have one thumb in their mouth and one up their ass and play switch. They’re going to have to get off their ass and do something or we’re going to lose everything. If this war is cast as a cosmic war – a religious war – between Jesus and Allah we lose because that is exactly what our enemies want to cast it as.
Look, we defeated fascist like Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini in World War Two in just 44 months and guess what? We didn’t have to become fascist like them. We don’t have to become fascists like them. We do not have to become the American military Christian Taliban and al Qaeda to defeat the Islamic version.
PNC: Right, we do their job for them.
MW: Exactly. We’re already doing that. We broke that Trijicon gun sight story. You saw the gun sight story right? That’s ours also and it’s astonishing, the level of ignorance in this country about our Constitution. The Tea Partiers say, “We’re looking at the Constitution and nowhere in there does it say separation of church and state.”
Well I got a couple of words for these idiots. The first is that The Constitution and the Bill of Rights -which is of course the first ten amendments – are only a few words. But over the hundreds of years we’ve had construing federal case law that interprets the Constitution and those are millions of words.
For instance, nowhere in the Constitution does it say slavery is prohibited, but slavery is prohibited now. Also nowhere does it say that in public you can’t say “nigger,” “kike,” “spick” or “dago,” but see, we’ve had the Constitution interpreted by our federal courts saying, “No those are fighting words and they are an exception to the First Amendment right of free speech,” just like yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. I thought at first that this was intuitive but it’s not, the average American has no clue about that. For instance Miranda rights are also not in the Constitution. See – that’s where the word Miranda comes from – it was a Supreme Court case. You follow me?
PNC: Yes.
And there are a million or two other things that exist now that were not in the Constitution but exist now because of case law. So if you’re going to say the concept of church and state does doesn’t say it right there, well yes, that’s a foundational aspect of this country. And that’s how it’s been interpreted. They go back and say, “That’s just a letter of Thomas Jefferson to them Danbury Connecticut Baptists”… no sorry, that isn’t the case.
PNC: They also like to denounce the treaty of Tripoli.
MW: Yes, that’s right. They find all kinds of ways even though Washington negotiated it, Adams signed it, it was unanimously passed by the United States Senate…they find all kinds of ways of saying that doesn’t exist either. Well, good luck. It’s embarrassing enough that we have to go with this “don’t ask, don’t tell” thing. Every NATO ally allows GLBT members of the military to serve. Our CIA and FBI do it. The countries that currently don’t: Libya, Iraq, Iran and the U.S. – Congratulations U.S.
PNC: Nice company.
MW: Yes.
PNC: I find one of the most frightening things to be that series of books, the “Political Incorrect Guide to “fill in the blank”.”
MW: Particularly The one about Islam which is sold in every military PX that you can find and it’s just like the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” you know, the defamation blood libel book against the Jews. It’s unbelievable. In other words, all of Islam is bad; they’re all devils.
PNC: I think a better title would be the “Politically Inaccurate guide to…” We find out that the true Age of Reason was the Middle Ages that people that oppose the Bible oppose reason…
MW: It’s so self-evident. I like what Carl Sagan, the late-famous astronomer said, “Look, absence of the evidence of god,” he admitted, “is not necessarily conclusive evidence of absence.” It’s just his way of saying, “I don’t see anything.” And that’s my right. I don’t have to; I don’t have to say I believe. We have people tell us all the time that America was founded as a Christian nation, and I’ll give you that, America, the colonies- but not the United States of America. It was specifically not founded that way. In the Massachusetts Bay Colony – the Puritans – they had religious freedom: If you didn’t like the way they believed you were free to leave.
Roger Williams up in Rhode Island tried to establish more equanimity up there but it’s amazing. It’s one thing for a public school system or a police department or a fire department to be filled with these fundamentalist Christians but it’s quite another, and listen carefully here, when they are inextricably intertwined into the very particulate of our “Pentacostalagon” – what we used to call our Pentagon.
You see we’re not on this call talking about a particular problem or an issue or challenge we’re talking about a national security threat and here is the calculus of that national security threat: It is a national security threat internally to this country every bit as much in magnitude and formidability as what we are seeing externally by now from a resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda at least as strong as it was on 9/11. And here’s what it is: We have a fanatical religiosity – in this case dominionist fundamentalist Christianity – mixed in with actual weapons of mass destruction. We have them, the other side – thank god – doesn’t – yet. Throw in a dash of terribly misguided patriotism, complete unfettered access to everything due to the draconian specter of command influence, a total abrogation of the oath that everyone is supposed to take to preserve, protect, support and defend the Constitution, and a total dearth of any restraint, oversight, and supervision – and what you’ve got is a national security threat that is so serious that this so unbelievable that nobody believes it unless they’re complicit. That’s it. That’s what we’re facing.
PNC: What do you think about the role of the Oath Keepers as they’re calling themselves – where they recruit military personnel to swear not to violate the Constitution…
MW: Here is the problem with the Oath Keepers. You see they have a version of the Constitution that is like the version of the blind person who reaches out, touches the nose of the camel and thinks he is touching an orange.
We promise you we will not do the following: We will never disarm the American people etc. The problem with the Oath Keepers is that they’re completely infused with fundamentalist Christianity. Their oath is to their version – this warped, perverted, tortured version – of the Constitution.
PNC: It is interesting that these groups only arose after President Obama’s election.
Look, we’re old enough to remember a president by the name of Ike – Eisenhower. Remember his famous warning at his farewell address? What we’re talking about this morning on this call is that we’re fighting is actually a fundamentalist Christian parachurch military corporate proselytizing complex. We talk about the Oath Keepers or Force Ministries or Officers Christian Fellowship or God-chasers or the Navigators or Military ministries, Campus Crusade for Christ.. These are parachurch organizations mixed in with the military, mixed in with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grummond.
We can go on and on and on. This is what we’re dealing with. The Family. You may have seen The C Street situation that came out this past summer. It really is this gigantic breathing, living, driven, wanton, willful, purposeful desire to make everybody the right type of Christian and the astonishing and sickly sad irony is that it’s kind of the flip side of what we’re seeing from the Wahhabist Islamic maniacs.
My mother used to tell me “moderation in all things including moderation,” but remember Goldwater’s famous ‘64 nomination acceptance speech that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Too many people are being moderate and that’s the problem. Or that’s the national security threat.
PNC: What’s the atmosphere for them at present with the growing polarization of the religious landscape?
MW: There’s two ways. We feel emboldened because nature abhors a vacuum. If they have a problem they can come to us and we are a very militant organization. Our militancy is in support of the Constitution. We’ll move very quickly into the media and the court systems. But many times it’s such an overtly fundamentalist Christian military that the moderate progressive Christians sit back and do nothing. Same with the moderate Jews or Muslims. Every rabbi in the military who is a chaplain we refer to by the same last name – “Rabbi Speed Bump” – because that’s what they are for the fundamentalist juggernaut. The same with every – there are a few of them – Muslim chaplain in the military: They’re speed bumps. The problem is that if you’re not the appropriate type of Christian you’re a tarantula on a wedding cake and we all know how long tarantula’s on wedding cakes last – not very.
PNC: Right. And unfortunately many Christians don’t understand the caveat “right kind of Christian”
MW: Correct.
PNC: and they see just a triumph for Christianity in terms of the Great Commission in Matthew. What they don’t realize is that they’re probably going to be categorized as heretics.
MW: Right. You see, the fundamentalist Christians love to look at the Great Commission pursuant to Mark 16.15 and Matthew 28.19 – one of the last things Jesus is supposed to have said: “Go and make disciple of all nations.” The difference between a fundamentalist and an evangelical Christian – I want to stress that we have a number of evangelical Christian clients, supporters, donors and even on our staff - evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are identical in that they want to turn you into their version of a Christian pursuant to the Great Commission. But an evangelical will say, “I realize I must comport my zeal to proselytize pursuant to the Great Commission in accordance with the time, place and manner restrictions of our Constitution and construing federal case law.” A fundamentalist will say “To hell and fuck the Constitution and case law because that’s just flawed man’s law and I will subordinate that to my Weaponized Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
The non-Evangelical or fundamentalist Christians follow the great commandment which is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which is two things – the Golden Rule, treat others as you want them to be treated and you will love the lord with all thy mind, soul and heart, and they follow the Great Commandment. The bottom line here is that the average person doesn’t understand the following thing about our Constitution and the Bible. The First Commandment is what? You cannot have any other gods but me. What does the first amendment say? Oh yes you can! That’s the problem. They don’t get that. Irrespective of what the first commandment is it doesn’t make any difference, because you’re not allowed to have any other gods.
PNC: They miss the fine distinction that they are allowed to have no other god if they so choose but they want to tell the rest of us we have to follow that too.
MW: That’s it.
PNC: I wanted to ask, I think you already answered this. Do you see the atmosphere improving in the military in light of the Air Force Academy putting up the stone circle? Are we winning or losing the battle.
MW: No, let me make it clear. It’s not getting better – for a couple of reasons. Unfortunately there is a seamless transition between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We cannot get any traction in the White House, with the commander in chief. And I think that if he was aware of what’s going on I want to think he’d engage but how long can we continue to wait? Remember the movie Top Gun? In the end it was “Maverick , Engage, engage, engage and get into the fight.”
I’m a Republican but I’m a Republican who voted for Clinton twice, Gore, Kerry and Obama. And it seems that as I mentioned, the people are not educated and there is no ongoing program for it. What is civilization? Civilization is that race as H.G. Wells said, between education and catastrophe. Catastrophe is winning. The people who are our enemies are the people who are complacent and do nothing. Remember that Edmund Burke statement that “All that is necessary for evil to win is for enough good men to do nothing.”
PNC: And we see conservatives quote that.
MW: Yes, of course they do and it’s astonishing, and at the same time it’s absurd to believe that we don’t separate church and state in this country, and of course that makes topical that famous statement by Voltaire that “he who can lead you to believe an absurdity can lead you to commit an atrocity.” To the side we’re fighting anyone who believes we have separation of church and state is absurd. We consider that to be the Dark Side of the Force. On our side of the Force if you don’t believe in separation of church and state you’re absurd. It’s a very, very pitched battle and there is no ongoing effort to educate members of the military. I’m sure you know about many of the Christian historical nationalist revisionist that have tried to push that alternative history that never happened in this country. As I said before, it is time to stand up and fight.
PNC: They have a history as it should have been and then they put a spin on facts so quickly you can’t keep up.
MW: I don’t know if you have ever read Howard Zinn’s “Peoples History of the United States.” That’s a powerful book. He writes from the perspective of the African Americans and the Native Americans. We’ve been spinning history for a long time but it’s another thing to spin it completely out of control. The concept of what they’re trying to do in Texas now with David Barton, complete revisionist history focusing on Christians. It’s astonishing.
PNC: Thank you Mr. Weinstein, I appreciate you taking the time to talk, and thank you for doing what you do.
Mikey Weinstein stated, “This reminds me of the famous plea by the young man who has murdered his parents: He’s in court and has now been found guilty and upon sentencing he throws himself upon the mercy of the court and goes: “Please your honor, please, have mercy, after all I’m an orphan.” Or if you will the playground bully who after beating a poor kid into the dust is caught by a teacher monitor and says, “This kid has put bruises and scrapes on my fists.” I hardly find them to be the aggrieved party; that the poor Christians are under attack here. First of all let’s keep in mind who we are fighting.”
I love it.
I can’t imagine putting the situation into any clearer or more easily understood terms, and I think just as important is the bit that comes after, where Mr. Weinstein specifically outlines who that enemy is – a subset of Christianity that pretends all Christians are victimized when their own poisonous levels of intolerance are objected to.
“moderation in all things including moderation,”
QFT!
Excellent interview! I agree with you that it’s good that MRFF sees this as a Sane vs. Crazy fight instead of a Religion vs. Religion fight. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”, or can be if he will realize who his real enemy is.
Thank you, Snoozepossum. The fundamentalists I run into typically go after Islam and vehemently reject any comparison as invalid but as I try to explain to them, from my perspective, theocracy is theocracy – Sharia or Ten Commandments makes no difference to me. I stick by the term Talibangelicals as valid for the bunch Mr. Weinstein identifies.
I love that term: “Talibangelicals.” I will surely be using it in the future…
And let me tell you, they hate it. Such righteous indignation!
All the more reason to use it then.
“Such righteous indignation!”
Ditto on the like – while I’m fond of “Christian Supremacists”, I’m all about overall effectiveness. Have there been any professional, science-based studies to determine the percentages for positive results in general application? Maybe a few heads exploding from a fit of pique, like that dude on Scanners?
I’m all for making a study of it. Visually it would be quite stunning:)
I’ve always thought that righteous apoplexy should be it’s own reward.
I’m with ya there, Snoozepossum.
This was a fantastic interview, Hrafnkell. Thank you so much. I’ll be linking to this over on my LJ and sending folks this way.
Thank you, Erynn. Mr. Weinstein has a way of putting things into perspective and the experience certainly left me with much to think about.
Add me to that: terrific interview; and Mr. Weinstein has vocalised exactly what I have been saying (or trying to) for years now, in regards to what is really going on in this country. Too many seem to shrug it off, as if it’s just more ‘business as usual’ in the hotbed of religion & politics – but I think this is of much more concern, as the extremists, this time, are in positions of genuine power, with great wealth backing them.
I’m with you there, Sehnga. I’ve tried to make some of these arguments on A Heathen’s Day and I’ve made them elsewhere and a typical response is amusement – people do not believe how genuine the threat is. I refer them to TheocracyWatch.org as a general rule, but people just do not want to take it seriously. I don’t want to make Hitler comparisons willy nilly but this is the response people had to Hitler originally too – nobody took him seriously. And remember what Hitler said when he had won: those who were laughing then are not laughing now.
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The past year or two, I’ve had to mentally revise that one to read: “The enemy of my enemy is an unreliable ally.”
You’re just not giving out the right bribes . . . ;0)
I don’t expect anyone to put my interests above their own, but invoking a Niemöller makes a good case to anybody who’s not sure they’ll be included in the ranks of the “approved”. And there’s a lot of Christians who have figured out that most of them won’t be.
What various groups do after self-preservation is taken care of is up for grabs, but you have to start somewhere, and I’d rather have temporary or partial allies than none at all.
[...] up with the newly-launched PNC group-blog project Pagan+Politics you are missing out! For instance, Hrafnkell Haraldsson posted an interview yesterday with Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) concerning the new Pagan [...]
I will defend, and have, even onto my death, your right to desire that I conform to your religious sensibilities, and will, I promise you, put you down at the first move you make to take that desire any step further in my direction, so help me MY god/goddess/any damn thing I care to worship.
Just what part of FREEDOM don’t these people understand?
My opinion is that the only concept of religious freedom they have is very Old Testament – their freedom to practice and exercise their beliefs to the fullest – which includes forcing us to go along. I think as Mr. Weinstein argued, they see the Ten Commandments trumping the Constitution and in the end, as the Egyptian monk Shenoute said, “There is no crime for those who have Christ.”
Great interview! I am using that marvelous quote from H.G. Wells immediately!
Thank you. And I would say H.G. Wells hit the nail on the head!
I don’t know how I have ‘missed’ Mikey Weinstein all these years, but mega kudos for so succinctly voicing what I have been saying for a decade (or more) now about the takeover by the dangerous fundies in this country – not limited to the military – and I appreciate his efforts enormously. He has the credentials to be heard, also, and not easily dismissed by the opposition. Cheers to a true patriot.
I feel the same way, Sehnga. I was introduced myself but recently, via GodsOwnParty.com/blogs. I was so relieved to find somebody else who didn’t see Palin and her dominionist aspirations as harmless fluff. And as you say, credentials are helpful. I did not include in the brief bio information at the top of the post this bit, in the interest of keeping the post under 4,000 words:
Mikey is a 1977 Honor Graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. Mikey has been married for over 32 years to his wife, Bonnie. He is the proud parent of two sons and one daughter. His oldest son and daughter-in-law are 2004 Graduates, and Mikey’s youngest son graduated in the Class of 2007 from the Air Force Academy and is the sixth member of Mikey’s family to attend the Academy. His father is a distinguished graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Mikey spent 10 years in the Air force as a “JAG” or military attorney serving as both a Federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney.
A registered Republican, he also spent over three years in the West Wing of the Reagan Administration as legal counsel in the White House. In his final position there, Mikey was named the Committee Management Officer of the much-publicized Iran-Contra Investigation in his capacity as Assistant General Counsel of The White House Office of Administration, Executive Office of the President of the United States. Mikey has held numerous positions in corporate America as a senior executive businessman and attorney.
After stints at prominent law firms in both New York City and Washington D.C., he served as the first General Counsel to Texas billionaire and two-time Presidential candidate H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation and left Mr. Perot’s employ in 2006 to focus his fulltime attention on the nonprofit charitable foundation he founded to directly battle the evangelical, fundamentalist religious right; The Military Religious Freedom Foundation. http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org
Mikey has appeared innumerable times on all of the major cable and terrestrial TV news networks and is a frequent guest on national radio networks as well. His constitutional activism has been covered and profiled extensively in the print media including the Associated Press, The New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, the Denver Post, The Guardian and many other national and international newspapers and periodicals including Time magazine.
St. Martins Press in New York released Mikey’s book, “With God On Our Side: One Man’s War Against an Evangelical Coup in America’s Military” in October 2006. The paperback version was released in February 2008 with the Forward being written by Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV. The book is an expose on the systemic problem of religious intolerance throughout the United States armed forces. Mikey recently made his international film debut in the Hollywood adaptation of James Carroll’s New York Times best selling book detailing the 2,000 year bloody history between the Church and the Jews, entitled “Constantine’s Sword”, and directed by Oscar nominee Oren Jacoby.
Mikey was named one of the 50 most influential Jews in America by the Forward, one of the nation’s preeminent Jewish publications. He also has received a nomination for the JFK’s Profile in Courage Award and received the Buzzflash Wings of Justice Award. In addition Mikey was honored by a distinguished civil rights organization Jews for Racial and Economic Justice with the Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer Risk-Taker Award, for those who have taken extraordinary risks in the pursuit of justice.
Reviled by the fundamentalist Christian right, Mikey has been given many names by his evangelical enemies including Satan, Satan’s lawyer, the Antichrist, That Godless, Secular Leftist, The Antagonizer of All Christians, The Most Dangerous Man in America and, most recently and perhaps most colorfully, The Field General of the Godless Armies of Satan.
On October 15, 2009, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation was officially nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The nominator, who wishes to remain anonymous, happens to be the only Christian in the upper chamber of his country’s national parliament; the country is an ally of the United States.
BTW, for anyone interested in helping out more with the MRFF, go to the website and see what kind of volunteer activities you can participate in. http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/support.html
(Full Disclosure: I’m Community Outreach Coordinator for Pennsylvania…)
From the time the Puritans required attendance at church to the time that Thomas Paine inspired the indifferent to fight for American freedom, the colonies were being settled with an ax, not a bible. Historian Richard Hofstadter describes in his book “America at 1750″ that ONE in seven were affiliated with a congregation at the time of the revolution. It seems that many people just bobble head the idea that this country was founded on Christianity, so the lie has been told so many times now that it has become truth. Jefferson, the Adams, Paine, and George Washington taking the oath of office in his mason apron, created this country DESPITE the constant insinuation of christian power mongers.
Mr. Mikey Weinstein articulates the danger posed by these dominionists brilliantly.
The truth is never black and white. Beck’s embrace of Paine is laughable: he fails to actually read anything in Paine he doesn’t want to see, including especially Paine’s disapproval of Christianity (or Paine’s proposed social welfare reforms – the first proposed welfare system in history). I’m seen so many simplistic arguments advanced by the far right – and they ignore entirely the fact that the Evangelicals of the 1780s WANTED a wall of separation. They supported Thomas Jefferson despite the accusations of atheism being leveled against him. Another good book is “Founding Faith” by Steven Waldman. I don’t agree with everything Waldman says but he makes some pretty astute observations and points to some “myths” held today by both conservatives and liberals.
This was a wonderful interview. I recently watched the History Channel International biography on Benjamin Franklin. To think of our founding fathers as all puritan is utterly shattered by Franklin. The man lived a life that even today would be considered scandalous, and played religions off each other for financial and political gain. Not only was he not a fundamentalist, he was anti-fundamentalist. He believed that all faiths could contribute to the well being of society.
“We hold these truths to be sacred…” That’s how the Declaration of Independence read before Benjamin Franklin took out his pen, and scribbled out the word “sacred” and wrote “self-evident” above it.
Does that strike anyone as something a fundamentalist would do? Of course not! Remember, everyone, a main argument against revolution was that the King of England was put in his leadership position by God, himself… and that had a LOT of scripture to back it up. To overthrow a king was tantamount to overthrowing God. The king was also head of the church in England. This was not lost on the colonists at all.
It was such claims to rule by holy right, that the colonists set out to abolish completely in their constitution. Some of the founders wanted to give Washington the title of King. He and a good many others refused such an insult to our new nation. Dominionists want to return to a holy right of rule. That’s not constitutionalism, that’s monarchism! I don’t use this phrase very often, but in this case it’s the most appropriate… it’s literally un-American! It’s the entire reason that we fought for independence!
I’ve seen Benjamin Franklin described as a progressive and I think this is an accurate label. The man was ahead of his time and as you say, unconventional. The status quo had no interest to him.
I always say to these people that our Founding Fathers chose as a motto “E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many, One) – NOT significantly, “In God we Trust.” The “under God” only got added to the Pledge of Allegiance in the conservative-dominated 50′s. But these people want to pretend this is all original, an intent going back to the Founding Fathers. It’s significant too that our Founding Fathers could have established a theocracy – but they did not. I think that says it all.
Hrafnkell stated, “But these people want to pretend this is all original, an intent going back to the Founding Fathers.”
Say a lie enough times and it becomes the truth.
Especially when they re-write the history books to reflect their “history as it should have been.”
Hrafknell said:
I’ve seen Benjamin Franklin described as a progressive and I think this is an accurate label. The man was ahead of his time and as you say, unconventional. The status quo had no interest to him.
Geniuses rarely submit to the status quo – we were exceptionally lucky in the number of geniuses present at the formation of our country (Franklin, Madison, Paine, Jefferson…)
“PNC: It is interesting that these groups only arose after President Obama’s election.”
Did you fact check this at all?
You should actually look into Stewart Rhodes and his reasons for creating the Oath Keeper’s.
They existed before the 2008 election had even occurred so how they are only arising after obama was elected.
The Tea Party is 2009. The Oath Keepers own site says 2009.
The Tea B——- I mean, the Tea PARTY movement is having their big “One Year Anniversary” celebrations THIS WEEKEND! ( http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/tea-party-one-year/2010/02/26/id/351109 ) And I just used a Conservative source to prove it.
The Oath Keepers were founded in March 2009. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_Keepers )
BOOYAHH!!!
Did you fact check your response at all, Greg?
Apologies, Bryon. I finally got a chance to sign in and look at the comments and found yours and approved it. Sorry it took so long and again, I don’t know why I never saw a notification that one was pending.
Not really. Tea Party started with Ron Paul in the 2007 primary election cycle. http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2007/12/ron_pauls_tea_p.html
Then it died down when McCain got the nod. Got going again as a response to TARP – which was created on Bush’s watch.
http://tinyurl.com/yz6zmzq (you’ll like this tshirt *grin*)
Finally got news coverage during the April 15, 2009 rallies (tax day)
Grew larger as a response to the Stimulus Bill.
The group seems primarily interested in FISCAL issues. So when people complain that the Tea Party wasn’t all angry when X was President (meaning they didn’t care about SOCIAL issues like the Patriot Act [which our President just signed an extension for] and weren’t angry then) that’s kind of missing the mark.
I don’t know if the Tea Party will be successful at pushing back on Social agendas, but they appear to be working hard on it. (BTW – if you see the Tea Party Express – that’s really just the GOP and not the Tea Party Patriots. The TPP had to sue the the TPE)
I have to stand by my date of 2009, Cara. For example, this article by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/us/politics/28keli.html
On February 16, the day before President Obama signed into law the stimulus bill, blogger Keli Carender called for and organized a “porkulus” protest in Seattle, Washington. – a clear response to Obama. As the Times article states, “leaders of the Tea Party movement credit her with being the first.”
With all due respect, I don’t think Ron Paul’s fund raising effort, despite the “Tea Party ’07″ label, is the true beginning of the Tea Party movement – which is clearly a reaction to Barack Obama. I would say that there is a similarity in names but not in intent.
I would also take issue with “fiscal reform” being their main goal. It is demonstrably not. There is far too much evidence arguing against, whatever libertarian underpinnings the movement might have.
You can stand by your date – but I lived through the eye sore of a guy dressed up like Paul Revere holding a Ron Paul sign and dumping tea onto the sidewalk outside of where I worked for almost 6 months solid. Every Friday, from 3pm to 6pm. Same dude is in the Rochester Tea Party. And from what I can tell – Ron Paul supporters are part of the core of this. While there’s all kinds of people out there looking to take credit for the Tea party – it got whipped up into what it is today because of TARP. Which is why, last September, Tea Party rallies had people wearing black armbands. If you want to get Tea Party members all wound up, mention TARP to them. And yeah, they know what President that was passed under. To dismiss this as a reaction to President Obama being elected is to not even try to understand this movement. And that’s ok if you wish to do that because this group is certainly not Liberal and probably holds little interest for you.
“I would also take issue with “fiscal reform” being their main goal. It is demonstrably not. ” So far my first-hand personal experience, and those Pagans I’ve been talking to who are part of or involved in the movement, would lead me to disagree with you.
I’m sorry, Cara, I just can’t see it. The Tea Party attracts people like Sarah Palin (dominionist),Michele Bachman (who if not a dominionist is damn close), Tom Tancredo (below) who is racist. I would have to write an entire article I suppose to accurately convey my objections but in the end I have to agree with Frank Rich of the New York Times that if the GOP is the Party of No, the Tea Party is the party of no government. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28rich.html
From the Baltimore Sun, February 10, 2010: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-02-10/news/bal-ed.teaparty0210_1_klan-rallies-anti-immigrant-mr-perot
“If the tea party movement wanted to shake its image as the angriest bastion for the lunatic right — with heavy emphasis on the lunatic part — last weekend’s first-ever National Tea Party Convention in Nashville did not help. Even more than Sarah Palin’s appearance, what continues to resonate with the general public, post-convention, is kick-off speaker Tom Tancredo’s racist attacks and his endorsement of a civics and literacy test for voters.
That the former congressman from Colorado is an anti-immigrant blowhard should not surprise anyone who caught his ugly, voter-rejected act during the Republican presidential primaries two years ago. But that tea party leaders chose not to condemn his speech in Nashville suggests their ideologies are closely attuned — much to their shame.
Tea partiers should have at least flinched when Mr. Tancredo attacked President Barack Obama by invoking his middle name of Hussein — that shopworn technique of not-so-subtly suggesting some nefarious Iraqi connection. Or perhaps when he blustered that “people who could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.”
But when the Republican bomb-thrower suggested that Mr. Obama won because the nation lacks a civics and literacy test for voters, the crowd should have been stunned and alarmed. Surely, anyone familiar with this country’s civil rights history should have been. For decades, such tests had one purpose — to prevent blacks from voting. And to make reference to them in context of the country’s first African-American president? That’s not some slip of the tongue or moment of political incorrectness. That’s the stuff of Klan rallies.
So what exactly is the tea party movement all about? It may have been advertised as a populist rally against big government, but it’s clearly headed in many directions that have little to do with taxes or spending.
Evangelicals, anti-immigrant activists, protectionists and a lot of Republican pols looking to score points with the movement seemed to be part of the convention too. What drives it seems to be some ill-defined anger at the status quo — and President Obama (and all that his election implied) is at its core. The tea party forces make Ross Perot’s Reform Party of the 1990s look staid and sensible in comparison. Mr. Perot may have had his personal quirks, but Reformers were forthright and entirely reasonable about their priorities: reduce the debt, reform politics and defeat the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Tom Tancredo’s speech ruffled alot of feathers to be sure. When you read the entire text and not just the “news” excerpts, it is easier to see his points. I don’t agree with the man’s views on most things, but he makes some valid points. Obama does have socialist views. 90-98% (depending on the source) of the blacks voted for him. That, at face value, is not racist, just factual. He’s hardcore against illegal immigration, something we do agree on.
Quite honestly, I see nothing in the Tancredo speech that remedies the horrible and offensive things he said. Even attacking multiculturalism. So no, I see nothing valid in anything he said, including claims that Obama is a socialist – I cannot see his points at all.
Don’t Confuse “Tea Party Nation” for the Tea Party Movenemt…TPN is a group trying to be the “leaders” of the movement. As far as I can tell most of them are staunch Republican partisans and are attempting to co-opt the movement. Its TPN who is pushing more of a social agenda, the movement itself is based on fiscal issues.
Paul,
I’m not seeing much to be preferred from one to the other. Are you telling me the big to-do in Nashville with Tancredo and Palin was TPM or TPN? Honestly, Beck is a TPer and Beck has pissed off the GOP by claiming even the GOP isn’t right-wing enough. Some of the people who are not with the GOP are as loony (in my opinion) as some of the people in the GOP. This attachment to the old “Patriot” movement, for one thing. And David Barstow had a good piece on the TP in the New York Times here http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/us/politics/16teaparty.html
Quite honestly, as I’ve said before, I’m not finding anything at all attractive about the group or the rhetoric or the paranoid “impending tyranny” narrative they’re trying to construct.
When talking about the tea party, you are talking about individuals. There is no central authority. TPN is, mostly, repblican partisans tring to “guide” the movement; but this is like herding kittens.
Tea Partiers generally stand for one thing and one thing only; fiscal responsability. Most Tea Partiers, myself included, don’t support Palin. Our reasons may be different, I’ve discounted her because she walked away from her governorship among other things.
Why do people believe that helping everyone afford private insurance is socialist? Getting rid of the private insurance and instituting a system like the one they have in Sweden could be considered “socialist” what Obama is doing is corperatist. I can’t think of anything Obama is doing that is actually socialist except perhaps removing some tax breaks for the wealthy while keeping them for the working and middle class.
What people don’t realize is that our Interstate System is socialism at work. I guess don’t like it, don’t drive on it. I don’t know what else to say. And honestly, I kinda wish Obama was a socialist because I have friends in Europe and despite all the horror stories, they tell me they’d rather have their socialized medicine than what we have. And even the politicians on the Right who denounce socialized medicine are more than willing to accept it for themselves, because that’s what they have as members of Congress.
Mark, I don’t buy into any of that rhetoric about tax breaks either. The GOP made a lot of hay about “class warfare” but apparently it’s only class warfare if the rich pay their share. It’s not class warfare when the lower working classes are gouged. Figure that one out!
I can’t speak for other areas of the country, but I think part of it has to do with people who were raised that “socialism is just communism spelled differently”. I was told growing up in the 70′s that socialism was only a tiny bit less evil than communism, and that the reason so many Europeans immigrated to the US was to escape the horrible living conditions caused by both. Ain’t ethnocentrism great?
When I was in the UK, I talked to several people about NHS and private insurance experiences. Many of them had complaints about NHS, but still said they could get treatment for problems that many of us can’t over here, even if we have insurance. I also got the impression that private insurance schemes like BUPA don’t seem to find as many ways to deny coverage to existing clients like many HMOs do. We went because my better half’s mother was in hospice care in a nursing home; her caregivers and the facility were beyond excellent. Her nurses were flabbergasted at some of the things that happen over here under the “pre-existing conditions” and “not covered by your policy” ruse. There’s always good and bad in any system, but I think I’d prefer their bads to ours.
My buddy (US citizen) was there as a tourist a couple of years ago and fell and fractured his ankle. He was seen in short order, set and given meds, and scheduled to check back in before he left to go home. No charge. And he wasn’t treated like a bum. I can’t say the same of some of my experiences.
I meant to include in that comment that one of the main reasons I was given that socialism is evil incarnate is that it supposedly 1) makes capitalism impossible and 2) is secular and therefore Satan-driven.
The propaganda about the US being founded as a “Godly nation” has been going on for a long time.
Those are the same reactions I’ve gotten from my European friends – shock, horror, disbelief. Like you, I’d prefer their system to ours. There are many socialist aspects to our country already – the Interstates being a prime example of course – and none of them have led to the downfall of our nation.
Infrastructure can hardly be classified as “socialism at work”. That’s quite a stretch. Libraries, roads, schools, utilities, these are things we expect of our government. Pooling the public monies get much more bang for the buck. Directly taking from one person to subsidize another is a different matter entirely, THAT is socialism.
But it is socialism – all of it – libraries, roads, schools, etc. The New Deal is universally reviled by conservatives as an example of socialism:
According to The Nation, “During the New Deal, the Roosevelt administration spent about $250 billion (in today’s dollars) on public-works projects, building about 8,000 parks, 40,000 public buildings, 72,000 schools and 80,000 bridges. The entire cost of all the New Deal programs (in today’s dollars) was about $500 billion.”
Schools, libraries, park buildings, roads, etc. Socialism. The Interstate system is also a product of socialism. You cannot claim that medicaid is socialism but that something that, simply because it results in a bridge or a road, is not.
Since socialism refers to public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, both Eisenhower’s Interstate system and Roosevelt’s New Deal are socialist – and that was one of the charges brought to bear against FDR when he proposed the New Deal – which included both social welfare and infrastructure spending.
Socialism, like Democracy…is usually a philosophy, rather than a type of government. (…with exceptions)
Unfortunately, the climate of debate in this country has been muddled by the McCarthy’s and Beck’s of the world, resulting in people who view things like Socialist philosophy as THE END OF FREEDOM, OH NOES!!! Socialist philosophy has been a part of our gov’t for many years, and our freedoms have not gone away. In fact, I would argue that we are much more “free” as a society now (with civil rights, women’s rights, much more free speech, etc.) than we were at the beginning of the 20th Century, before all this Socialist philosophy started doing horrible things like improving people’s working conditions, helping the poor and unemployed, and all that other garbage that doesn’t sit well with the Social Darwinist, “Protestant Work-Ethic” types.
I mean, really…the people who rail against Socialism are the same people who use terms like “intellectual,” “college-educated,” and “progressive” as a pejorative. They try to paint Liberalism as un-patriotic and evil, while ignoring the fact that this government was built upon the Progressive, Liberal ideals of the Enlightenment.
Pish-posh.
In my post (which is STILL awaiting moderation), I posted a link to a NewsMax article: ( http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/tea-party-one-year/2010/02/26/id/351109 )
This weekend was the 1 year anniversary of the Tea Party movement. They had rallies all around the country celebrating this “birthday.” My link is from a right-wing news source. Here is a quote:
“Just one year ago, Republicans were reeling from President Barack Obama’s historic inauguration.”
In the immortal words of the great and wise sage, Willy Wonka: “You lose! Good day, Sir!”
As far as discussions about the Tea Party go, I know we will never come to agreement (by that, I mean in general and not just any two or three people here) but I found this article to be interesting:
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020822/tea-party-everything-you-know-wrong
I dunno – according to Tea Partyer Bill Whittle, the media is trying to cast Wiccans of some stripe as a loud presence:
“Of course, the media coverage has tried very hard to portray the normal, average, every-day Americans of the Tea party rallies as dangerous and angry racists and Wal-Mart knuckle-draggers, while identifying the mass-produced signs, the mass-produced T-shirts, the mass-produced members of bused-in wiccan nihilist anarcho-Maoist lesbian eco-weenie anti-war protestors as somehow the genuine voice of the American people.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2010/02/08/party-time/
I tried to say all that last bit and sprained my mouth. Anybody know what Trad that is? ;0)
I tried to read that article, by the WAAAHMBULANCE showed up, grabbed the author and carted him away.
I am guessing Bill Whittle’s got a Pat Robertson/Jerrry Falwell view of Pagans.
Responses from the author when questioned about that by a Mr. Raymond – who is a Wiccan:
Eric,
I cannot find an email address on this site or I would write you privately, now that I have a few spare moments.
First, thank you for the retraction and the apology. Your comment was one of 26 pending moderation and they have been posted.
Second, I do not speak for the Tea Party movement, and I made this point repeatedly. To say that I claim to be a “principle figure” in the Tea Party movement is a far more disturbing misrepresentation of my position than the accusation that I deliberately held or deleted your comment. I don’t believe anyone speaks for the Tea Party movement and I stated clearly that the only difference between my opinion and that of most commentators is simply that I had been to one. To say that I claim to be a spokesperson is very unfair because in point of fact one of the main thrusts of the commentary is that no one seems to be in charge, least of all me. This is in fact the thing I like best about the movement.
Which brings me to,
Third… I simply do not understand the point you are trying to make. There is a suggestion that the Tea Party movement is not “inclusive.” What does that mean? We are not talking about a closed-door meeting of deep-thinkers that requires a secret knock and a password to gain admittance to. These events are publicized and open to all. If Wiccans want to become a part of the Tea Party movement, they most certainly do not require my permission or anyone else’s for that matter. Just go! You will find that you are a long, long way from being the most controversial people on the field — which is another thing I like about it: it is simply a grab-bag of individuals.
As a libertarian, I would assume this would appeal to you. What does group identity have to do with this? Some Wiccans will like it; others not, and those Wiccans will also be lawyers or soldiers or members of any other group that they may chose to identify with. I don’t see how any of that is relevant. The Tea Party movement does not court the Wiccan Vote because they do not appear to court ANY vote. If you are pissed off at what the government has been spending and you think they’re all a bunch of corrupt incompetent boobs… we’ll see you there.
Finally, the point of the anarcho-Maoist tirade — as I mentioned earlier — was simply to point out that the people I have seen at the Tea Party events seem to me to be the most mainstream and regular people I have seen, and yet they are demonized as a mob of the far-right fringe. The people who I mentioned in that rhetorical sketch are in fact on the fringe. That does not make them any less human or any less American, but I don’t think there’s any denying that. Some of my opinions put me on the fringe as well, depending on the subject. For example, I loved Steve Spurrier when he was at Florida. Just about everyone else in the country hated the man.
I’d be more likely to give him any credit if he had actually couched his example(s?) in definitive but not necessarily insulting terms, and if those terms weren’t fairly textbook of a Way Far Out Righter’s traditional disdains. I think his fringe is so long he’s tripping over it.
Yep, with encouraging, loyalty-inspiring statements like that, loads of Wiccan anti war eco weenie lesbians are gonna show up in their Chairman Mao t-shirts and anarchy tatts and beat down the door to join right up.
My favorite part of that article:
“I’m the mother of teenagers. And listening to the Tea Party’s political voice, it’s hard to tell the difference between this movement and any standard-issue angry adolescent. I’ve heard every bit of it before, most of it at high, petulant volume while standing in my own kitchen. You aren’t the boss of me. You can’t tell me how to spend my money. I don’t owe anything to the people who raised me. I’m completely independent and self-sufficient, I have no obligations to the past or future or the greater good, and society has nothing to offer me beyond leaving me alone. Also: even though you’ve had all this education and life experience, I’m just as smart as you are, so there!”
The snark is potent, indeed!
Yes I always fact check. If you read my blog at all (or my writings on NewsJunkiePost.com or elsewhere) you’ll find I cite my sources religiously.
March 2009 to be precise, according to their website. I’ll also give you:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/11/18/am.acosta.militia.oathkeepers.cnn
It’s like we’re posting the same stuff at the same time… You complete me.
@ Bryon: LOL
My little tirade: I just have a problem with the idea that all these people are suddenly concerned about the Constitution when we had (for EIGHT years) a president who said it was “just a goddamn piece of paper” and who literally wiped his ass with it, violating a good 6 out of 22 Amendments (not to mention the habeas corpus thing in the Constitution itself), and there was no Oath Keepers, no Tea Party – nobody protesting any of it – until Barack Obama got elected.
I agree.
(BTW, my comment would make more sense if my other one…above…were not “awaiting moderation.” I was posting links showing that both the Tea Parties and Oath Keepers are post-Obama inventions…)
I understood the context of your remarks, Bryon, without seeing the post you refer to. In fact, I haven’t gotten any message about a comment awaiting approval so I wonder if it got lost in the blogosphere, or maybe Alex Jones knows where it went
Oh, it’s still there…still says it’s “awaiting moderation”…
The links may have triggered the spam filters – there’s a bit in the Comment Policy thread about that. I got an “awaiting moderation” message too, and was trying to figure out who I’d pissed off!
Strange…wonder why I didn’t get notification of a comment pending. I’ll sign in and check it out. I’m sorry it hasn’t gotten approved yet! On A Heathen’s Day I always get notices and instantly approve them.
Um ever here of infowars.com?
Hear*
Alex Jones = LULZ.
Infowars.com is where braincells go to die.
I agree with you on Alex Jones and Infowars, Bryon. Not impressed at all by that operation or by Mr. Jones.
So you have a source that was reporting on what your saying wasn’t reported on and you call it a joke…
So is the joke the horrors of what bush was accused of or… did you only consider it a joke once your candidate was connected to the same corrupted individuals bush was?
1.) I can barely make out what you are attempting to say. Please write more legibly if you expect people to debate with you.
2.) Alex Jones is a tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist. His Infowars.com site is only a “source” of the most outrageous BS on the internet. Anyone with an IQ above the “Forrest Gump” level should be able to see that. He has no more credibility than using “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” as a source.
I can think of several people who prostested the Patriot Act and the War in Iraq. I think both were very dangerous precidents.
I think many on the right feel like they got a “bait-and-switch” with W. When W announced TARP I vividly remember one letter to the editor that said “Who knew that ‘compassinate conservitism’ meant liberalism?”