The religious right’s tactics seem to have become ever more extreme in the past year. Today an organization with the credible-sounding name of The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR) used the Christian Newswire service to blast out a press release suggesting President Obama is a deranged murderer of “preborn children.”
The e-mail plays off the widely discredited and preposterous charge that proposed health insurance reform would allow government to withhold care for the elderly and infirm while paying for abortions. Says the group’s director, Gregg Cunningham:
“Americans don’t want to pay for mandatory insurance which defines baby-killing as ‘essential care.’ They are turning against ‘end-of-life’ counseling which is more coercive than consultative. It is becoming increasingly clear that this horrifying plan is designed to reduce the numbers of preborn children who could ruin their parents’ careers and the numbers of elderly parents who might spoil their children’s retirements.”
But it gets worse.
Cunningham urges supporters to send the White House e-mails that include an illustration (provided by the group) showing President Obama made up to look like the deranged Joker (from a Batman movie). The Obama/Joker character’s bloody hand is wielding a scalpel over the picture of a dismembered fetus. (We have no intention of posting such a vile illustration here.)
The press release continues:
“(T)he president needs to see this poster and he needs to hear from every American who opposes the publicly funded abortion and end-of-life health care rationing which will result from the plan which Mr. Obama and his socialist friends are trying to ram down our throats.”
We have a hard time believing that most religious conservatives would approve of these kinds of depraved tactics. But the religious right continues to redefine the meaning of “extremism.”
I think it is obvious to all who are reasonable and prudent that the “leadership” of the Religious Right are neither religious or right.
Distorting facts, lying and lying by omission to play upon unfounded fears and incite an ignorant following are decidedly unchristian things to do.
No Christian organization could genuinely want to derail healthcare reform and leave 50 million people uninsured, another 50 million underinsured, and the rest of us at risk of losing healthcare covereage if layed off or cancelled by our employer when according to the World Health Organization an infant or adult has a higher risk of dying in America than Cuba.
http://apps.who.int/whosis/data/Search.jsp?indicators=%5bIndicator%5d.%5bMBD%5d.Members
You have to wonder where these bozons get their news or whether they are really this creative at lying. In the various health care bills making their way through Congress, there never has been a “death panel,” and there are no provisions for financing abortions with health care plan money. In fact, there is a separate federal law that was passed by Congress and signed into law several years back that says no federal funds may be expended to pay for abortions.
However, as said on a news program I watched last night, these fake news stories are not designed for intelligent and well-informed people. They are targeted at the morons who get all of their news from conservative talk radio, FOX news, far right wing web sites, religious right web sites, and radical newsletters. Many of them live in my area:
“Loadji shotgun Fred. A liberal izzuh comin’ up y old driveway.
Aw ma!!! That’s the mailman!!!
“Fred, that’s what I mean!! One of ’em air liberalized govment sympathizers!!!
Sorry, one more point here. I am sure many Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, etc. do not want a “public option” in the proposed health care plans simply because they believe the government would be inept and mismanage it. However, my real concern is about the wingnut fringe. In my opinion, they feel that the “government option” would be used as a weapon against them because they have been outspoken against what they believe are liberal causes. In their minds, it would work something like this:
U.S. Government: It says here that Joe Doe needs a liver transplant to live. Is he on the list Fran?
Fran: Yes, he is. It says here that he wrote an article that was critical of Joe Biden on the Heritage Foundation website.
U.S. Government: Good. We just nailed another one. I will send out the “Denial Letter” to Mr. Doe tomorrow. That’ll teach his sorry butt.
In other words, just my opinion, the kinds of people that would lap up that clap-trap in the lead post above feel that their own government is a hostile foreign enemy that has taken over the United States, which is of course ridiculous. My principal concern focuses on those more discerning people who are more than willing to encourage these misguided sheep to use them for political gain. That really is unAmerican and immoral—should scare all of us.
Christians (and religious fanatics of all flavors) believe that if a lie benefits their cause, it isn’t a lie.
Very interesting that in the past, even Republicans wanted universal coverage. Beginning with Teddy Roosevelt and ending with Richard Nixon, many Republicans wanted to pass universal coverage.
It sure ain’t my father’s GOP.
Sad that the public option is steadily being moved to the edge of the table and will soon be off the table. I predicted this. So is the payment to physicians to counsel their patients about end-of-life care which is a shame. This is something I WANT to discuss with my physician whom I feel should be paid for his/her consultation. I DON’T want to end up on life-support with tubes shoved up every orifice of my body and being forced to suffer for weeks, months, or years – just for the enrichment of some corporation. Opponents don’t want people to have choice about how they end their lives (and let’s face it: nobody gets out of here alive). Just like they don’t want women to have a choice about their pregnancies.
Isn’t it weird how they are screaming not to “pull the plug on granny” yet they DON’T WANT ANY MONEY SPENT. What do they think is keeping granny plugged in? Answer: MONEY!! Trouble is, this is advanced mathematics for these retards. Wonder how much crack these folks have been smoking.
A different way of thinking about “unchristian” re: PHarvey.
The CBR leadership, their members and supporters are Christians, good Christians. They are probably reverent, pious and prayerful Christians.
The CBR’s actions are strongly supported in their bible. They probably see themselves as God’s righteous avengers here on earth and are getting their instructions from their religious leaders. Those leaders, in turn, get their inspiration directly from their Christian God. Instructions from their eternal, omnipotent, omniscient god are revealed to them during prayer sessions and through earthly manifestations. God uses these leaders as earthly vessels for his message. The leaders then instruct their followers as to what behaviors God commands. Further, they quote chapter and verse from their bible with passages that clearly support the undertaking of any number of actions, of which, publishing the piece in question is by no means the most vile.
Make no mistake, these people are Christians, and they are not far from the main stream. There are few Christian or other religious leaders, of any stream, willing to criticize them or their methods.
PHarvey means, I think, that the behavior exhibited by CBR does not reflect the attributes assigned to Jesus in the New Testament. Emulation of Jesus is not a requirement of Christianity. A statement of creed and a sincere belief in that statement are sufficient. It is not at all antithetical that people engaging in exceptionally bad behaviors, are in fact, good Christians, very good Christians.
The question for CBR’s leaders, members and supporters is not, how good they are as Christians, but rather, how good are they as people?
If you google “The Center For Bio-Ethical Reform”, you’ll find that their website is called Abortionno.com. Go to the site, and it starts right off with a graphic abortion video. I didn’t watch the whole thing.
Something more than 58 years ago, I was gong through Catechism classes in the Prsbyterian Church I belonged to in San Antonio. The preacher, a nice old man whose name has long escaped me, emhatized that I would never get to heaven without accepting the requirements of the Nicene Creed.
When I asked how that would apply to some kid in the hills of Burma who would never ever been exposed to Jesus Christ, the preacher’s response was that no matter how straight was the Burma kid, he was not going to Heaven.
So for about the next 50 years, I h ave been in the hypocrit class. I would stand and repeat the Nicene Creed each time I went to church and didn’t really believe a word of it.
About four years ago, I turned up with grapefruit size tumors in my colon and lung. It’s not that I didn’t deserve the tumors…I’ve smoked and drunk all the things that the do-gooders claim cause these problems. I was told regularly by some folks that they were “praying for you.”
The colon tumor was sliced out along with the sigmoid colon. The lung tumor was a bit trickier…it was wrapped around my vena cava…the big vein that sends de-oxygenated blood to your heart.
Well, it so happens that I’ve survived! So much so that the goofy “publican doctors want me to lose some of the 125 lbs. I gained back from the 100 lbs. I lost before going under the knife.
As a minor weekly newspaper publisher, I suspect that most of those folks praing for me hoped I’d hurry up and croak and not cause them any discomfort.
But I have since decided that I’ll remove myself from the hypocrit group. I’ve not been back to church in a coupld of years and don’t plan to go again.
If one of the doctors tells me things have gone bad…well as the bumper sticker of a while back then “Shit Happens.”
Should any of you find me praying at the alter, you have my permission to put me out of my misery. I would much prefer that to going back to being a “Christian” hypocrit.
Txred99: I think you nailed it. I’d been trying to synthesize this for weeks but I think your analysis hit the bulls-eye. I’d take issue with just one of your statements: “There are few Christian or other religious leaders, of any stream, willing to criticize them or their methods.” I disagree. I’m a Reform Jew (think: VERY Reform), and in my opinion most Reform Jews would criticize them and their methods. Maybe even Conservative Jews would too (and Conservative Jew doesn’t necessarily mean politically or socially conservative). I bet most Unitarian Universalists and those of other liberal Christian denominations would too. It’s just that there’s so many ultra-conservative Christians these days, and those many have very loud voices. I think that’s what’s skewing things a little.
JohnMartin: Wow, that’s quite a story. Like you, I could no longer say the Nicene Creed anymore in good conscience so I excommunicated MYSELF. I wish you good health, and I hope your insurance company takes good care of you.
Cikey John, 125lbs is nothing — it’s only 40 kgs. You can do it son.
Living in a country that is not particulaly religious and has universal health care , I ‘m baffled by the extremism of your political discourse. Pictures of a man turning up at a rally with a semi-automatic slung over the shoulder is a shock. I sometimes wonder whether the country can survive the convergence of the religious right, the GOP and FOX.
I rarely get to church these days John so it is unlikely that I would ever put you out of your misery but I wouldn’t mind a beer.
John C: It’s hardly political “discourse” anymore, is it? In fact, there’s very little discourse going on at all. It’s just SHOUT DOWN ANY MENTION OF “REFORM.”
Yeah, the guns displayed at rallies is pretty shocking. The debates in the 1960’s over whether or not we should have Medicare for seniors became quite lively, and again the debates in the 1990’s over “Clintoncare” were not nearly as scary as these now. Which can probably mean only one thing: the real issue is Obama’s skin color. In the 1960’s and 1990’s, the presidents were white.
And notice NOW how seniors LOVE their Medicare. Yet, in the 60’s they wanted no part of it. IDIOTS.
These crazies really are in need of health care: MENTAL health care.