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Octafish's Journal
Want to know who helps make it feel like things are going to hell?
 The late Abraham Vereide and then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower Meet the Senators in the Creepy Right-Wing Cult Trying to Defeat Health Care Reform The Family has spent decades consolidating power within the GOP and may have come to dominate the party even among those who do not belong to the cult. By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet. Posted October 20, 2009. In the heat of summer, a din of voices arose from the U.S. Senate in opposition to the health care reform legislation that was taking shape in both houses of Congress. Overlooked in media coverage of the health care brouhaha is the membership of many of the senators who most vociferously oppose the legislation in the right-wing religious cult known as The Family. With the Senate Finance Committee's passage last Tuesday of its version of health care legislation, expect the debate to flare again as the bill moves to the Senate floor. The Family's point men -- "key men" in the cult's theological lexicon -- will likely try once again to defeat reform in the service of their Supply-Side Jesus. You could chalk it up to nothing more than pure partisanship, this obstructionism on the part of these Republicans. Or you could say that the ideology-cum-theology of The Family, which has spent decades consolidating power within the GOP, has at last come to dominate the party even among those who do not belong to the cult. EXCERPT... Not His Brother's Keeper It's that theology that led The Family, over the years, to aid and abet such dictators as Haiti's Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, Indonesia's Haji Muhammad Suharto, Chile's Augusto Pinochet, and the brutal Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi, who among them killed more than a million people. The Family seems to be fond of "revolutions" of a particular type: Those that overthrow socialists or any kind of leftists, even those, like Chile's Salvador Allende, who were democratically elected. As Jeff Sharlet explains in his masterful book, The Family, "God chooses his key men according to His concerns, not ours ..." CONTINUED... http://www.alternet.org/story/143252 / Something else these guys preach: Jesus hated Unions. Scandal-linked “The Family” Says: Jesus Wants You to Bust Unions Controversy continues to swirl around The Family, the secretive Christian group linked to sex scandals by its GOP members—including Sen. John Ensign, Gov. Mark Sanford and Rep. Charles Pickering. Also known as The Fellowship Foundation, the group’s perverse ideology-cum-theology promotes the notion that an elite group of powerful men should become close to Jesus and guide the rest of us on our behalf. And their converted convent and residential headquarters, dubbed the C Street Residence, has become ground-zero in the latest outbreak of GOP hypocrisy. Yet even as they believe that conventional morality shouldn’t have to apply to them, they’re also motivated by a deep belief in the value of free-market capitalism and the evil of unions. As The Week Magazine summarized:
Vereide’s recruiting efforts spread eastward, and in 1941 he arrived in Washington, where he began cultivating friendships with powerful people and setting up prayer groups. By then, Vereide was convinced that conventional Christianity had it backwards: Instead of ministering to the down-and-out, Jesus wanted believers to tend to the “up-and-out”—members of America’s elite who lacked intimacy with Jesus. In Vereide’s worldview, free-market capitalism is divinely ordained, and unions and regulations are a form of blasphemy. It’s little wonder that Sen. John Ensign, among other GOP faithful, have been so virulently opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act, which is designed to level the playing field for workers. CONTINUED... http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/... / Gee. Jesus must've loved Empire, too. The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power Preaching the Gospel of 'biblical capitalism,' military might, and American empire by Enver Masud May 25, 2009 The Wisdom Fund Ivanwald, situated in a cul-de-sac at the end of 24th Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is the stronghold of a widespread "invisible" and powerful organization, working for "democracy" and "free markets," but in reality extending the American empire. Founded by a Norwegian immigrant Abraham Vereide (known as Abram) - now led by Doug Coe, the network - organized much like Ivanwald into cells of five, and "populated by elite, politically ambitious fundamentalists," is the subject of Jeff Sharlett's book: "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power." The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family's leaders, "a target for misunderstanding." Established in 1935 to oppose FDR's New Deal and the spread of trade unions, the Family's network spans the world organizing weekly prayer meetings at which the rich and powerful meet to advance their agenda. The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast - "attended by Pakistan's famously corrupt Benazir Bhutto." Its keynote is often delivered by an outsider. One such address was delivered by Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar. Every president since Eisenhower has attended the National Prayer Breakfast Abram founded in 1953. CONTINUED... http://www.twf.org/News/Y2009/0525-Family.... Happy holidays! |
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A few important things to know about the assassination of President Kennedy
President John F. Kennedy was proud to be a Liberal Democrat who worked every day he was in office to keep the peace and to make life better for all Americans. As President, Kennedy worked to make ours a stronger nation and this a better world. Many in the country opposed him for his Liberal perspective on civil rights. Kennedy ordered the integration of more than college campuses, he ordered the FBI and Secret Service to hire African American agents. Others opposed his Liberal policies towards other nations and regions. Kennedy favored economic development of the Third World, rather than the past approach of siding with a particular nation's strongman or oligarch to more economically steal the natural resources. In Africa, his policies were to help people learn to feed themselves, read to their kids, and take care of the sick and elderly. That policy, Kennedy believed, would make the United States longer and better allies. Most, if not all, of his successors returned to the traditional policy of stealing all that a nation had to offer. JFK also made enemies with the most frightening elements of the psychology that is the United States. The monied elite that owns the contracts and politicians that put the pork on the table for their sponsors are no strangers to violence. They make their biggest money off of the most horrible thing there is. So, for his less than three years as President, John F. Kennedy faced the War Party, the military-industrial-governmental complex that did all it could to make the Cold War Hot. Still, the War Party tried to have war over the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy said, "No. The War Party tried to have war over the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy said, "No. The War Party tried to have war in Vietnam and southeast Asia. Then, as well, Kennedy said, "No." Of course, all along -- even when they pushed for nuclear war with the Soviet Union -- President Kennedy said, "No." The War Party presented Kennedy with Operation NORTHWOODS, a plan that suggested the US Government kill Americans and make it look like Cuba did it as a pretext for war with Cuba and the Soviet Union. Kennedy said, "No." And he fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who submitted it. Then came November 22, 1963 and Dallas. After President Kennedy was dead, the War Party made out like Lee Harvey Oswald did it. And the FBI, CIA and Warren Commission (as revealed through Dulles' "Mighty Wurlitzer") left a trail of "fixed" evidence to make it out Oswald was working for Cuba and its master, the Soviet Union. Yet, that is merely a falsehood perpetuated by the nation's political elite and mass media. For according to the records of the United States Government, Oswald worked for the United States. Do Good, ah? -- Fight Evil!
 Dear DUer and Reader, Thanks for stopping in to check out this journal. I'd also like to thank DU for making it possible. The reason it's here is to get people aware of what the Bush Transnational Criminal Enterprise does to destroy the United States of America; how they loot the nation's Treasury; impoverish We the People; cover our planet with war; work to enslave our children; and kill those who oppose them. My journal also is here to try and help prevent the world these pirates, slavemasters and warmongers work night and day to create. Please feel free to spread the information, opinions, ideas and links. Please let me know if I've made a mistake or if you disagree with me. Please also chip in to add to the evidence against these treasonous, warmongering, mass murdering, profiteering gangsters I refer to as the Bush Family Evil Empire. That name is a bit of a misnomer as they operate to enforce the will of a global ruling elite. To them, evil "is only business." - Octafish Greatest Threads
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