>John Thornton wrote:
>
>>What makes you think this? The fact that school boards are still having
>>to fight the creation vs. evolution in science class B.S. somewhere every
>>year? The fact that the sitting President of the US believes he is gods
>>chosen messenger to bring a christian based crusade of free-market B.S.
>>to the heathens in the rest of the world? The fact that the Attorney
>>General of the US is an evangelical Assemblies of God nutbag who believes
>>god chose him to serve the current President of the US and instill some
>>weird brand of paternalistic moral fiber into the "heathens" in the US?
>>Yea, these guys are powerless. Get a clue dude, they're currently running
>>the show.
>
>I'm sorry if my analysis of the current state of the religious right steps
>all over your dogma about their power. I understand that the American left
>hasn't yet accepted the fact that they won the culture wars against the
>right. We need to sharpen our understanding of the current situation so we
>don't waste resources on fighting the battles populated by ghosts and
>bogeymen. Thomas Frank has evidently done some good work in explaining how
>the current conservative movement operates. If I remember correctly, he
>was one of the first to point out the demise of the religious right in his
>book "One Nation Under God." Various leaders on the religious right have
>said this year that they lost the culture wars and that their power has
>waned (see Gary Bauer for starters).
>
>The fact that the current U.S. President has some fundamentalist religious
>attitudes does not mean that he is the avatar of the religious right. If
>he gets voted out of office in November, the religious right is not going
>to suddenly come back to life.
>
>They've lost and they've given up.
>
>ChuckO
Powerless and moribund is not the same as waning. I have never claimed that the religious right has as much media play and gives the appearance of being involved at the same level they were in the '80's. That is a given. What is wrong is that they have all given up and that there is no significance in Bush, Ashcroft etc. right wing religious nuttery. It does matter that they believe they are appointed by god and it does influence their decisions. If you believe that right wing religiosity has no power in this country you are amazingly delusional. This may well be their swan song, maybe not, but to pretend that the evangelical right doesn't have at least one hand on the reigns is denying reality. I also don't remember arguing that Bush was the avatar of the religious right. Try arguing with the points I make rather than the points you wish I'd made. Your posts might then be more interesting. The President, the person who believes god appointed him to his position, now has only "some fundamentalist religious attitudes" in your opinion? Reality check time Chuck. Just because some blue-haired woman isn't trying to get a magazine banned from your library means very little. You appear to equate the religious right with the Moral Majority. They are not one in the same. You write as someone who believes there is some sort of monolithic entity called The Religious Right. There doesn't have to be. No one I know who is engaged in any battles with the religious right is fighting "ghosts and bogeymen" but rather groups and individuals involved in right-to-life beliefs, vouchers for religious schools, mandatory prayer in school, and a host of other issues that are real. They may not rank as high as your agenda of overthrowing the state but these issues matter to these people. I guess I'll tell them all to go home and quite fighting to prevent these gains from being rolled back, ChuckO says they're fighting ghosts and wasting time they could be using to smash the state. Reality is currently busy "stepp[ing] all over your dogma" about the powerlessness of the religious right.
John Thornton