On Mar 23, 5:52 pm, LEROY KNEVIL <le...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/hillarys-nasty-pasto...
> There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent
during=
> the flap over
> intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
When=
> it comes to unsavory
> religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
>
> You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the
September
> 2007 issue of Mother
> Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet re****ted that "through
all =
of
> her years in
> Wa****ngton, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible
> study and prayer circles
> that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the
"Fellow****p,"=
> aka The Family. But it
> won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking expos=E9, The
Famil=
y:
> The Secret
> Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.
>
> Buzz up!on Yahoo!Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but
that=
> term applies far more
> aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their
term=
> -- and operates
> ***-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In
2002=
,
> writer Jeff Sharlet
> joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing ***, drugs, and
> alcohol, and participating
> in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used
h=
is
> own name and
> admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger
either.=
> When he went outdoors
> one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets
calls
> from Family associates
> asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.
>
> The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National
Praye=
r
> Breakfast, held every
> February in Wa****ngton. But almost all its real work goes on behind the
> scenes -- knitting
> together international networks of rightwing leaders, most of them
> ostensibly Christian. In the
> 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and
its
> fascination with that
> exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a
whole=
> bestiary of murderous
> thugs. As Sharlet re****ted in Harper's in 2003:
>
> During the 1960s the Family forged relation****ps between the U.S.
governme=
nt
> and some of the most
> anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial
> leader****p. The Brazilian
> dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family sup****t, was overseeing
regula=
r
> fellow****p groups for
> Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose
tally =
of
> several hundred
> thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most
> murderous dictators) was
> presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the
Reagan
> Administration the
> Family helped build friend****ps between the U.S. government and men such
a=
s
> Salvadoran general
> Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the
torture=
> of thousands, and
> Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical
minister=
,
> who was linked to
> both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.
>
> At the heart of the Family's American branch is a collection of powerful
> rightwing politicos, who
> include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James
> Inhofe, and Rick
> Santorum. They get to use the Family's spacious estate on the Potomac,
the=
> Cedars, which is
> maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served
b=
y
> the Family's young
> women's group. And, at the Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get
> powerful jolts of
> spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already-powerful.
>
> Clinton fell in with the Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study
gro=
up
> composed of wives of
> conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended
to
> the senate, she was
> promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the
weekly
> Senate Prayer
> Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously
raci=
st
> Senator George
> Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has
written =
of
> Doug Coe, the
> Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in
> Wa****ngton: a genuinely loving
> spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who
> wants to deepen his or
> her relation****p with God."
>
> Furthermore, the Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward
> legislative tendencies,
> including her sup****t for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the
> workplace, such as for
> pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police
> officers who refuse to
> guard abortion clinics.
>
> What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right?
Mayb=
e
> it was just a phase
> in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles
a=
nd
> names: Hillary
> Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Hillary
Clinton=
..
> She reached out to
> many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including
ne=
w
> age guru Marianne
> Williamson and the liberal Rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family
> association that stuck.
>
> Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the
underappreciate=
d
> depth of her
> religiosity, but he himself struggles to define the Family's theological
> underpinnings. The
> Family avoids the word Christian but wor****p Jesus, though not the Jesus
w=
ho
> promised the earth
> to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the
elites
> who matter, the
> political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as
the
> Family has a consistent
> philosophy, it's all about power -- cultivating it, building it, and
> networking it together into
> ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug
C=
oe
> has said, and "build
> new power where we can't."
>
> Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the
> Trinity Unity Church of
> Christ. Now it's up to Clinton to explain -- or, better yet, renounce --
h=
er
> longstanding
> connection with the fascist-leaning Family.
Sos why is this not getting the coverage it should. Because of the
bias at Fox and CNN.
|
