American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America
by Chris Hedges
American Fascists: The Ch...
by
Chris Hedges
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bookshelves:
non-fiction,
political
Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
everyone
So, Ellis and I just finished reading this as Book #1 in our newly-founded 2-person book group, and while it wouldn't have been my first pick, I actually really enjoyed reading it, and it was an excellent book for discussion.
Chris Hedges describes the idealogy of the extreme Christian Right group based here in America, and frankly, I found it to be pretty scary. The idea behind creating an entirely Christian nation (as the Christian Right would like to do) is not only un-democratic, but it ...more
So, Ellis and I just finished reading this as Book #1 in our newly-founded 2-person book group, and while it wouldn't have been my first pick, I actually really enjoyed reading it, and it was an excellent book for discussion.
Chris Hedges describes the idealogy of the extreme Christian Right group based here in America, and frankly, I found it to be pretty scary. The idea behind creating an entirely Christian nation (as the Christian Right would like to do) is not only un-democratic, but it is also completely intolerant of any person's beliefs or religion that is not Christian. Isn't freedom of religion and individual rights what our country was founded upon?
Hedges believes that forcing Christianity upon people or nations will only lead to a fascist state. I loved the quote by Luis Palau, a protege of Billy Graham, who does not conform to the ideas of the Christian Right. He says that "change comes from personal conviction, not by Christianizing a nation. If we become called to Christ, we will build an effective nation through personal ethics. When you lead a life of purity, when you respect your wife and are good to your family, when you don't waste money gambling and womanizing, you begin to work for better schools, for more protection and safety for your community. All change, historically, comes from the bottom up."
The Christian Right, however, feel that violence and intolerance must be used to rid the nation of evil, or those that they see as evil (ie: non-Christians, gays, pro-choice advocates, scientists, etc). Hedges says that, "This rhetoric of depersonalization creates a frightening moral fragmentation, an ability to act with compassion and justice toward those within the closed, Christian circle yet allow others outside the circle to be abused, silenced, and stripped of their rights."
"The radical Christian Right calls for exclusion, cruelty and intolerance in the name of God."
Hedges main idea is that we simply cannot be tolerant of intolerance. He says that, "I do not deny the right of Christian radicals to be, to believe and worship as they choose. But I will not engage in a dialogue with those who deny my right to be, who delegitimize my faith and denounce my struggle before God as worthless."...less
More thoughtful than the title suggests, Chris Hedges lays out an informed analysis of the dominionist movement in the United States and how it has used the sympathies of the Christian Right to further anti-free speech and anti-freedom of religion/freedom from fear/freedom of expression agendas.
While every person's religious belief is protected by the Constitution, a totalitarian agenda is not. What has increasingly happened since the late sixties is a movement within the Christian Right...more
More thoughtful than the title suggests, Chris Hedges lays out an informed analysis of the dominionist movement in the United States and how it has used the sympathies of the Christian Right to further anti-free speech and anti-freedom of religion/freedom from fear/freedom of expression agendas.
While every person's religious belief is protected by the Constitution, a totalitarian agenda is not. What has increasingly happened since the late sixties is a movement within the Christian Right to establish a theocracy in America, with the rule of law, the planning of the future, and choosing of leadership left up to God. This is dangerous for several reasons:
1) Establishing the ruling power for one religious belief is the death of all other's freedom of religion.
2) The legitimizing of forces in the faith realm with pseudoscience creates individuals that cannot think critically and that think that "facts" are interchangeable statements of belief rather than evidential phenomena.
3) A belief that people who are not "with God" (and in this case, hold a very specific set of religious beliefs) do not have a right to expression. This agenda is extremely hostile to civil liberties and the rule of law.
4) Relying on God for all provision (regulating the market, choosing our leaders, better jobs, better opportunities, better health/healthcare) causes people to withdraw from the civic realm and cease to better society through action (relying solely on prayer and individual acts of kindness). While individual acts of kindness are wonderful, the withdrawal from the civic realm undermines the power of a large collective that is able to provide services for its people (for example, the military is more powerful because it is made up of people from the whole nation, rather than each community having its own militia). Therefore an endemic culture of despair sets in (and already has across much of the country) where there is no hope for better jobs, better healthcare, better wages, a better life. Faced with this situation, many people turn to religious leaders offering hope but no solution for their despair beyond a heavenly reward.
5) Many in the Christian Right believe that ideas counter to their own are "of Satan". While I affirm these people's right to believe what they will, it is imperative that dissidents cease to take such accusations lightly, and demand their own right to disagree. For many in the Christian Right, a discourse is impossible -- only conversion. A liberal appeal to "tolerance" is impotent without recognizing the dangers of a belief system that is fundamentally hostile to reason and free thought.
Lastly, Chris Hedges, who was both a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for 20+ years and a trained theologian at Harvard Divinity School, is able to balance both empathy towards the need for a sacred realm while making a detailed argument against the anti-Constitutional and anti-American sentiments that dominionists and their sympathizers wrap in up in the flag.
The only way to counter this movement is for people that want to maintain free discourse and free speech, the right to dissent and congregate, to become involved in government at the local, regional, and national level. Civic duty is a duty to our neighbors, ALL neighbors (regardless of creed, religion, or race), and the only way to defend this foundation of society is to actively participate in it.
Apathy does nothing but embolden and empower the corrupt....less
bookshelves:
politics,
religion
Read in January, 2007
Hedges reports in fascinating detail what goes on inside the churches, conventions and meeting halls of the Christian right.
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
bob jones
I initially saw author Chris Hedges speak on BookTV about this book, and was enchanted by the fiery invective and seething passion he had for his subject matter. It was a powerful sermon aimed at the "dominionist" movement in fundamental Christianity, led by people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. On the surface, his argument is obvious at points, as this group is already much maligned by mainstream media and the liberal elite. But his perspective is refreshing, as he not only ...more
I initially saw author Chris Hedges speak on BookTV about this book, and was enchanted by the fiery invective and seething passion he had for his subject matter. It was a powerful sermon aimed at the "dominionist" movement in fundamental Christianity, led by people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. On the surface, his argument is obvious at points, as this group is already much maligned by mainstream media and the liberal elite. But his perspective is refreshing, as he not only delves into the specific ways that these dominionists afflict the poor, tired, and desperate, but also the ways that their counterparts, the liberal community at large, has aided in their growing powerbase. As he states, the paradox of liberalism is to allow every opinion as valid, no matter how hateful and violent, and thus he does not expect the average liberal mind to have any teeth and power to combat it. He does not make easy targets of the masses of downtrodden souls who make up the movement, often giving them humane descriptions and sympathy for their situation. Hedges refuses to blame the victims, but instead blames the society that created them and the villains who exploit them. While the book is too short and sometimes repetitive, it is a fiery sermon from the Mount, a angry diatribe against a growing threat, and shows the anger and passion that is necessary to make it stop. ...less
Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
Anyone
The danger of the "Christian" right wing to our freedom and right to live as we desire is vastly underrated, and Hedges does a brilliant job of exposing this danger. By defining what is right and wrong, by viewing history and even prehistory through the prism of a literal interpretation of the Bible, they seek to impose their worldview on all and to hell - literally - with those who refuse to accept their way. Hedges has solid credentials as a "person of faith", but sees cl...more
The danger of the "Christian" right wing to our freedom and right to live as we desire is vastly underrated, and Hedges does a brilliant job of exposing this danger. By defining what is right and wrong, by viewing history and even prehistory through the prism of a literal interpretation of the Bible, they seek to impose their worldview on all and to hell - literally - with those who refuse to accept their way. Hedges has solid credentials as a "person of faith", but sees clearly the inherent dangers of merging politics with faith. The example of Nazi Germany - where adherence to the official line is the only way to succeed - is all too close a parallel. Although it is likely to be read only by those who agree with Hedges, it should be read by all; many of the more thoughtful among the Christian Right would likely have the wool pulled from their eyes....less
I used to think Christian fundamentalism in America was like an ad hoc movement of some hypnotized chickens. But according to this book, it seems to be a pretty big deal. I always think it’d be good to look at the reason why people believe in such absurd nonsense before critiquing them. The only chapter that serves that purpose is chapter two, cultural despair. This is where it arouses my sympathy: many people, facing economic difficulties and psychological crisis, feel unrooted, lost, despera...more
I used to think Christian fundamentalism in America was like an ad hoc movement of some hypnotized chickens. But according to this book, it seems to be a pretty big deal. I always think it’d be good to look at the reason why people believe in such absurd nonsense before critiquing them. The only chapter that serves that purpose is chapter two, cultural despair. This is where it arouses my sympathy: many people, facing economic difficulties and psychological crisis, feel unrooted, lost, desperate and dejected. In an isolating and insecure society plagued by crime, violence, alcoholism, high unemployment, fundamentalist Christian doctrine provides them with exactly what they need: a loving community, social support, promise of heaven and salvation and a rigid moral ground. The rest of the book deals with how evangelists spread their faith using different tactics like scaremongering, love-bombing, massive tv and radio networks, God-reviewed articles disproving science.
It is pretty scary how influential right-wing Christians are in the US government, according to the statistics in this book: “Christian fundamentalists now hold a majority of seats in 18 Republican Party state committees, 45 senators and 186 members of the House of Rep earned approval ratings of 80 to 100% from the 3 most influential Christian right advocacy group. 30% of American schools with sex ed teach abstinence only. 40% of respondents to a poll believe in the Bible as the actual word of God and that it is taken literally, word for word. 80% think God works miracles, half say angels exist.” Ouch. The book provides a detailed and amusing account of what’s happening inside evangelical churches, what they preach and how people react to such callings.
But the book would be much better if Chris Hedges could provide a more constructive solution. His solution is, basically, DON’T TALK TO FUNDAMENTALISTS. We can’t be tolerant to those who are intolerant to us, because once they seize power, they will take away our freedom and skin us one by one. Although I agree with him this phenomenon is dangerous, he completely ignores the social and economic backdrop that drive these people to this ideology of fear, intolerance and frankly, fanatical bullshit. So instead of ridiculing them, why can’t we provide them with a more loving community, better working environment, better secular education, better social support? Second, this book is more like an anecdotal rant mocking the stupidity of various Christian lunatics than a scholarly assessment of the movement. But I’d read a bit more on German fascism to see if it’s really true they’re similar phenomena.
Anyway, 3 stars for its humor value, I laughed my head off while reading this book:
On the Creation Museum in Kentucky: “it boasts an elaborate display of the Garden of Eden in which Adam and Eva, naked but strategically positioned not to show it, swim in a river as dinosaurs and giant lizards roam the banks. Before Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise, all of the dinosaurs were peaceable plant eaters. The evidence, is found in Genesis, in which God gives “green herb” to every creature to eat.”
“Whitcomb brings up some of the stickier problems in Genesis, such as the account that God created light on the first day and the sun on the fourth day. He posits that God created a “temporary” light until the sun was for. The reason is that God wants to abolish the cult of sun worship. And don’t think for one minute America has abandoned sun worship, either in public school textbooks, which starts this way: “billions of years ago, solar radiation bathed the primeval seas and activated lifeless chemicals and coalesced them into complex, self-reproducing organisms… what you have just heard was a sun-worship service.”
“those who join forces with the Antichrist in the Left Behind series, include the UN, the Europe, Russia, Iraq, all Muslims, the media, liberals, freethinkers and international bankers. The Antichrist, who heads the UN, eventually moves his headquarters to Babylon… Europe, because it has so few Bible-believing Christians, will not see large sections of its population lifted to heaven in the rapture. The US, however, will be devastated when tense of millions of its Christians disappear, including half of the military. America will suddenly become a Third World power, and Europe, ruled by the Antichrist, will dominate the planet.”
...less
bookshelves:
non-fiction,
religion-and-sprituality
Read in January, 2007
This is a very alarming portrait of some of the darkest forces at work in America, or anywhere for that matter. Hedges argues that the extreme wing of the contemporary Christian movement in the US shares much with the actions and worldview of other historical fascist movements, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and their willingness to make concessions only until they achieved unrivaled power. There is little in here that I was not aware of, as far as...more
This is a very alarming portrait of some of the darkest forces at work in America, or anywhere for that matter. Hedges argues that the extreme wing of the contemporary Christian movement in the US shares much with the actions and worldview of other historical fascist movements, movements that often masked the full extent of their drive for totalitarianism and their willingness to make concessions only until they achieved unrivaled power. There is little in here that I was not aware of, as far as the overall goals of the Christo-fascists, but as he explores some of the details it was illuminating, and even more disturbing than I had already realized.
He describes how a dominionist-based ideology is at the root of a radical movement that seeks to shred the barriers between church and state. The new radical churchies would have been familiar to George Orwell, with the attempt to redefine our very language to their sinister purposes. They are systematically attempting to subvert the root institutions and beliefs of America, intent on ushering in a theocratic state, disenfranchising any who object, attacking the other, whether for sexual or religious preference. He points out how the leaders of this movement have evacuated core Christianity of its meaning, substituting inside the false cover of the Christian name a core of exclusion, violence, victimization, and dehumanization that is very much worth fearing.
There is a reasonable swath of examples from which to choose here. Perhaps I am picking nits, but I felt that, while his take was compelling, I would have been more impressed with more detailed, point by point comparison of contemporary and historical movement actions. Also, the information seemed more anecdotal than scientific. Maybe that might have been addressed by referring to other, more precise, less popular works that detailed the trend by the numbers. But, overall, Hedges makes a compelling and very alarming case that there is considerable darkness afoot and all who value core American values like separation of church and state and the first amendment would do well to pay attention, and take action where possible.
Quotes
P 10
America and the Christian religions have no monopoly on goodness or saintliness. God has not chosen Americans as a people above others. The beliefs of Christians are as flawed and imperfect as all religious beliefs. But both the best of American democracy and the best of Christianity embody important values, values such as compassion, tolerance and belief in justice and equality. America is a nation where all have a voice in how we live and how we are governed. We have never fully adhered to these values—indeed, probably never will—but our health as a country is determined by our steadfastness in striving to attain them. And there are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the nation. Our loyalty to our community and our nation, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “is therefore morally tolerable only if it includes values wider than those of the community.”
These values, democratic and Christian, are being dismantled, often with stealth, by a radical Christian movement, known as dominionism, which seeks to cloak itself in the mantle of the Christian faith and American patriotism…Dominionism seeks to redefine traditional democratic and Christian terms and concepts to fit an ideology that calls on the radical church to take political power. It shares many prominent features with classical fascist movements, at least as it is defined by the scholar Robert O. Paxton, who sees fascism as “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cultures of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
P 13
While traditional fundamentalism shares many of the darker traits of the new national movement—such as blind obedience to a male hierarchy that often claims to speak for god, intolerance toward nonbelievers, and a disdain for rational, intellectual inquiry—it has never attempted to impose its belief system on the rest of the nation. And it has not tried to transform government, as well as all other secular institutions, into extensions of the church. The new radical fundamentalism amounts to a huge and disastrous mutation. Dominionists and their wealthy, right-wing sponsors speak in terms and phrases that are familiar and comforting to most Americans, but they no longer use words to mean what they meant in the past. They engage in a slow process of “logicide,” the killing of words. The old definitions of words are replaced by new ones. Code words of the old belief system are deconstructed and assigned diametrically opposed meanings. Words such as “truth,” “Wisdom,” “Death”, “Liberty,” “Life” and “death” mean life in Christ or death to Christ, and are used to signal belief or unbelief in the risen Lord. “Wisdom” has little to do with human wisdom but refers to the level of commitment and obedience to the system of belief. “Liberty” is not about freedom, but the “liberty” found when one accepts Jesus Christ and is liberated from the world to obey Him. But perhaps the most pernicious distortion comes with the word “love,” the word used to lure into the movement many who seek a warm, loving community to counter their isolation and alienation. “Love” is distorted to mean an unquestioned obedience to those who claim to speak for God in return for the promise of everlasting life. The blind, human love, the acceptance of the other, is attacked as an inferior love, dangerous and untrustworthy.
P 21
Dominionists wait only for a fiscal, social or political crisis, a moment of upheaval in the form of an economic meltdown or another terrorist strike on American soil, to move to reconfigure the political system. Such a crisis could unleash a public clamor for drastic new national security measures and draconian reforms to safeguard the nation. Widespread discontent and fear, stoked and manipulated by dominionists and their sympathizers, could be used by these radicals to sweep aside objections of beleaguered moderates in Congress and the courts, those clinging to a bankrupt and discredited liberalism, to establish an American theocracy, a Christian fascism.
P 28
The movement is fueled by fear of powerful external and internal enemies whose duplicity and cunning is constantly at work. These phantom enemies serve to keep believers afraid and in a state of constant alert, ready to support repressive measures against all who do not embrace the movement. But this tactic has required the airbrushing out of past racists creeds—an effort that, sometime after 1970, saw Jerry Falwell recall all copies of his earlier sermons warning against integration and the evils of the black race.
P 36
Those in the movement now fight, fueled by the rage of the dispossessed, to crush and silence the reality-based world. The dominionist movement is the response of people trapped in a deformed, fragmented and disoriented culture that had become callous and unforgiving, a culture that has too often failed to provide the belonging, care and purpose that make life bearable, a culture that, as many in the movement like to say, has become a “culture of death.” The new utopians are not always wrong in their critique of American society. But what they have set out to create is far, far worse than what we endure. What is happening in America is revolutionary. A group of religious utopians, with the sympathy and support of millions of Americans, are slowly dismantling democratic institutions to establish a religious tyranny, the springboard to an American fascism.
P 151
[people:] who do not conform to the ideology are gradually dehumanized. They are tainted with the despised characteristics inherent in the godless. This attack is waged in highly abstract terms, to negate the reality of concrete, specific and unique human characteristics, to deny the possibility of goodness in those who do not conform. Some human beings, the message goes, are no longer human beings. They are types. This new, exclusive community fosters rigidity, conformity and intolerance. In this new binary world segments of the human race are disqualified from moral and ethical consideration. And because fundamentalist followers live in a binary universe, they are incapable of seeing others as anything more than inverted reflections of themselves. If they seek to destroy nonbelievers to create a Christian America, then nonbelievers muse be seeking to destroy them. This belief system negates the possibility of the ethical life. It fails to grasp that goodness must be sought outside the self and that the best defense against evil is to seek it within. When people come to believe that they are immune from evil, that there is no resemblance between themselves and those they define as the enemy, they will inevitably grow to embody the evil they claim to fight. It is only by grasping our own capacity for evil, our own darkness, that we hold our own capacity for evil at bay. When evil is always external, then moral purification always entails the eradication of others.
...less
bookshelves:
politics,
rationality,
religion
Read in April, 2008
Chris Hedges paints a rather frightening, regressive, misogynistic view of the underground Christian Right, a fundamentalist movement he alleges is closely linked to neo-conservatism and the American Republican party. Citing a plethora of anecdotal evidence -- which, I feel, both makes his thesis of Christo-fascism increasingly terrifying, yet also manages to come off as patently absurd -- Hedges tells a tale of a vocal minority of Chris...more
Chris Hedges paints a rather frightening, regressive, misogynistic view of the underground Christian Right, a fundamentalist movement he alleges is closely linked to neo-conservatism and the American Republican party. Citing a plethora of anecdotal evidence -- which, I feel, both makes his thesis of Christo-fascism increasingly terrifying, yet also manages to come off as patently absurd -- Hedges tells a tale of a vocal minority of Christians actively working to dominate and oppress those they disagree with; their ultimate goal, he claims, is the eventual destruction of the tolerance and democratic values of our open society.
While Hedges asserts at the end of the book that he feels that a Christian Fascism will not happen in America, he also claims that we are one major disaster -- be it economic, natural, or terroristic -- away from the Christian Right usurping power, at which point this body of people would establish a Christian theocracy.
Much of the rhetoric used by the fundamentalists featured in the book is maddening; for example, many of the leaders of this burgeoning fascistic movement make the ludicrous claim that America was founded on Christian ideals, which is a revisionist spin of such magnitude, whole cities could by powered by dynamos attached to it. The book is filled with hate-filled intolerance aimed at homosexuals, liberals, and secular-humanists, the latter of which is apparently a gaudy, widely used pejorative.
Hedges claims that the only way to combat those on the Religious Right is to take "acts of faith," thereby using the tools of these potential oppressors against them. He asserts that, at times, tolerance is not appropriate: in effect, we need to be intolerant of intolerance. He claims also that our current culture of run-away consumerism must be checked, at least to the point where jobs are returned to those they were stripped from.
While he offers much in the way of anecdotal evidence to support his claims, Hedges often leaves little discussion for his points, other than to (possibly) take his quotes out of context to make them seem exaggerated and obviously ludicrous. Although I do not disagree with his viewpoint, nor most of his conclusions*, Hedges is not a powerful writer, and the editing of his book is rather choppy on occasion. His book would be appropriate to get a brash overview of the purported world-view of the Christian Right, but I would definitely recommend Dawkins' The God Delusion, Dennett's Breaking the Spell, or Harris's The End of Faith over American Fascists.
* As a staunch atheist, I do not feel that "faith" -- at least, in the quasi-religious sense that Hedges briefly mentions as being useful -- nor reading of Bible is imperative to rational discourse or nation-building....less
Read in November, 2007
I had the good fortune of seeing Chris Hedges speak at the University at Albany in the Fall 2007 semester. He spoke about Iraq and Iran, and about the role of the ultra-theo-conservatives in American politics. He grounded his talk in an anecdote about a professor of his in divinity school who had lived in Germany under the Nazi regime and who had escaped by train, hiding damning film footage in his luggage under a portrait of Hitler. This...more
I had the good fortune of seeing Chris Hedges speak at the University at Albany in the Fall 2007 semester. He spoke about Iraq and Iran, and about the role of the ultra-theo-conservatives in American politics. He grounded his talk in an anecdote about a professor of his in divinity school who had lived in Germany under the Nazi regime and who had escaped by train, hiding damning film footage in his luggage under a portrait of Hitler. This professor told Hedges and his classmates about the dangers of fascism -- and warned them that when fascism came to the United States, it would be wearing an American flag and holding a cross.
American Fascists picks up this thread in contemporary American society. Written in journalistic style, it serves as an expose of the dominoinist movement in America from the perspective of a divinity school-trained Christian and former war correspondent. It discusses the political nature of dominionism as well as the tactics the movement uses to grow. The result is a hard look at a frightening movement in which the gospel of prosperity is used to reach out to lower- and middle-class people, backed by a ritual-free theology-lite, apocalyptic approach supported by mass communication technology. At its core, it is a movement of "pastors" who falsely claim to be Christians subtly pushing a political agenda on people who, at heart, are honest Christians trying to do the right thing.
While this summary might make the book sound as though it's a cut-and-dried, bleeding-heart, lefty-liberal treatise, it is in fact a very thoughtful, well-researched, and (dare I say it?) balanced work. Hedges has without question done his homework. And rather than angry shout, this book comes across more like a saddened and desperate plea made by someone who has seen both the compassion and strength that religion can embody as well as the power of its destructive capabilities when twisted. Highly recommended....less
bookshelves:
2007
Read in April, 2007
Last year, I read Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming, about the rise of "Christian Nationalism," the political movement of evangelical Christians. I said it was the scariest book I had read in a while. Strike that, American Fascists is the scariest book I have read, possibly ever. Picking up on the same themes, but with more alarmism, Hedges describes the twenty-five year progression that began with Pat Robertson's and Jerry Falwell's early televangelism, and has led to enormous politi...more
Last year, I read Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming, about the rise of "Christian Nationalism," the political movement of evangelical Christians. I said it was the scariest book I had read in a while. Strike that, American Fascists is the scariest book I have read, possibly ever. Picking up on the same themes, but with more alarmism, Hedges describes the twenty-five year progression that began with Pat Robertson's and Jerry Falwell's early televangelism, and has led to enormous political influence over government from the local school board that mandates the teaching of creationism to the establishment of the Republican Party. Hedges makes a number of arguments, but his most paradoxical is that liberals who value a free society are harming that very ideal by tolerating the intolerant "Dominionists". He likens the movement, whose ultimate political goal is an American theocracy, to the Nazi party. Hedges--the son of a Presbyterian minister, graduate of Harvard Divinity School, and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist--has the street cred to know of what he speaks. If this interests you, read it, along with Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming. It will send shivers down your spine.
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bookshelves:
politics-according-to-abby
Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
Liberals, religious freedom fighters, people with a brain
It was a little bit tedious to read because it reinforces the same points again and again. But I think it is on purpose to really get through to the reader just how scary these people are. And of course it put me in the position to talk back to the book at how moronic and hypocritical these Christian fundamentalists are.
It is really sad how you can persuade or influence these people to see it from your side because they are dead set in their fantastical beliefs. They don't want to face real...more
It was a little bit tedious to read because it reinforces the same points again and again. But I think it is on purpose to really get through to the reader just how scary these people are. And of course it put me in the position to talk back to the book at how moronic and hypocritical these Christian fundamentalists are.
It is really sad how you can persuade or influence these people to see it from your side because they are dead set in their fantastical beliefs. They don't want to face reality. They want their world or no world.
They only thing we can do is to make sure officals elected are not part of, feeding into the interest of these psychopaths. We need to stand up to them and not back down. "Tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a vice" - Chris Hedges....less
Has a copy to sell/swap
—
Read in March, 2007
American Fascists is a good (if not great) book about the totalitarian underpinnings of one of the America's strongest cultural movements. Hedges, a Christian who attended Harvard Divinity School, explores the component parts of evangelical "dominionism," his name for the right-wing religious movement that seeks to dismantle the open society and create a Utopian Christian state.
The great irony is that, as dominionists like Pat Robertson and James Dobson rail against our society's g...more
American Fascists is a good (if not great) book about the totalitarian underpinnings of one of the America's strongest cultural movements. Hedges, a Christian who attended Harvard Divinity School, explores the component parts of evangelical "dominionism," his name for the right-wing religious movement that seeks to dismantle the open society and create a Utopian Christian state.
The great irony is that, as dominionists like Pat Robertson and James Dobson rail against our society's growing appetite for tolerance and cultural relativism, they are, in the end, its chief beneficiaries. We have become so committed to the values of pluralism, diversity, and respect for divergent beliefs, we have allowed a burgeoning fascist movement to grow in our midst....less
bookshelves:
class-books,
religion
Read in March, 2007
This book is an excellent review of some of the practices and ideas of the Christian Right, and Chris Hedges' view that these are the new fascists, intent on taking over America and the world. Hedges writes from a very biassed view- after all, he is arguing that these are the people who will bring about the downfall of America as we know it- but it is interesting. While perhaps my conclusions would not be as strong as Hedges', he argues it well and has great examples for the reader. Worth a read...more
This book is an excellent review of some of the practices and ideas of the Christian Right, and Chris Hedges' view that these are the new fascists, intent on taking over America and the world. Hedges writes from a very biassed view- after all, he is arguing that these are the people who will bring about the downfall of America as we know it- but it is interesting. While perhaps my conclusions would not be as strong as Hedges', he argues it well and has great examples for the reader. Worth a read, either to rebut or to explore.
In class, I had to vouch for a lot of this stuff as real. A lot of blue America doesn't understand- there is an alternate lexicon and set of goals held by fundamentalist evangelicals. This book is an excellent primer....less
Read in December, 2007
So, I read this book in anticipation of a trip to a museum dedicated to creationism. That trip never worked out, but I ended up finishing the book anyways.
The author believes that there is a conspiratorial cabal of ultra-right Christians that seek to control the world and convert others through force and nefarious means. He tries to make his case by taking us to Christian sermons, conventions, etc, but he really misses the opportunity to take us into this world and really give us an immers...more
So, I read this book in anticipation of a trip to a museum dedicated to creationism. That trip never worked out, but I ended up finishing the book anyways.
The author believes that there is a conspiratorial cabal of ultra-right Christians that seek to control the world and convert others through force and nefarious means. He tries to make his case by taking us to Christian sermons, conventions, etc, but he really misses the opportunity to take us into this world and really give us an immersive experience. Instead, each chapter features a little reporting and the rest is the author speculating and warning us about this new Christian Taliban.
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Read in October, 2008
Well written, exhaustively researched, and cogently argued. Hedges' scathing critique of both the Christo-fascist dominionist movement within the Religious Right and the apathy and "intellectual snobbery" of more liberal elements of our society who think said Christo-fascists are harmless fringe kooks is right on the money. He does an excellent job of demonstrating how dangerous these fanatics can be if not somehow restrained and his overall point, aimed at American liberals, that &q...more
Well written, exhaustively researched, and cogently argued. Hedges' scathing critique of both the Christo-fascist dominionist movement within the Religious Right and the apathy and "intellectual snobbery" of more liberal elements of our society who think said Christo-fascists are harmless fringe kooks is right on the money. He does an excellent job of demonstrating how dangerous these fanatics can be if not somehow restrained and his overall point, aimed at American liberals, that "tolerance is a virtue, but tolerance coupled with passivity is a vice" is difficult, if not completely impossible, to deny. Well done....less
AMERICAN FASCISTS is pretty interesting (and blood-boiling) through its stretches of matter-of-fact reporting on the many Bible-addled lunatics and charlatans with whom America is afflicted. There's good stuff in here about the origins of Dominionism, Creationist museums, the NRB convention, anti-gay activists and their weird conversion therapies... all as fascinating as it is infuriating for any reader with an attachment to reality-based reasoning. Less interesting are the more abstract passage...more
AMERICAN FASCISTS is pretty interesting (and blood-boiling) through its stretches of matter-of-fact reporting on the many Bible-addled lunatics and charlatans with whom America is afflicted. There's good stuff in here about the origins of Dominionism, Creationist museums, the NRB convention, anti-gay activists and their weird conversion therapies... all as fascinating as it is infuriating for any reader with an attachment to reality-based reasoning. Less interesting are the more abstract passages generalizing about the nature of totalitarianism. That kind of thing takes up a disappointingly large share of the book....less
Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
people not yet convinced that born-agains ache for the apocalypse
Like his more compelling book War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, the author offers a humorless but decently written treatise, this time on why we should be afraid of folks on the more snake-handling end of the religious spectrum. We all know this, of course, but seeing it all in print makes me all the more twitchy, which is more likely caused by all the MSNBC political programming that I watch. Yes, global warming is bad, but is it any more immediately terrifying than Pat Robertson or ...more
Like his more compelling book War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, the author offers a humorless but decently written treatise, this time on why we should be afraid of folks on the more snake-handling end of the religious spectrum. We all know this, of course, but seeing it all in print makes me all the more twitchy, which is more likely caused by all the MSNBC political programming that I watch. Yes, global warming is bad, but is it any more immediately terrifying than Pat Robertson or Kirk Cameron? ...less
bookshelves:
religion
Read in September, 2008
What a great book! Having previously been involved in a religious movement much like the ones depicted here, I didn't find it overblown or unrealistic. The amount of salemanship that takes place is frightening, and the way that belief trumps behavior is chilling. The only reason it only got 4 stars out of me, ironically enough, is for the last chapter which wordily swept through definitions of fascism. It kind of overdid it, frankly. All the rest of the book depicted this pretty well withou...more
What a great book! Having previously been involved in a religious movement much like the ones depicted here, I didn't find it overblown or unrealistic. The amount of salemanship that takes place is frightening, and the way that belief trumps behavior is chilling. The only reason it only got 4 stars out of me, ironically enough, is for the last chapter which wordily swept through definitions of fascism. It kind of overdid it, frankly. All the rest of the book depicted this pretty well without beating me over the head with the comparisons to Nazism. ...less
Addendum: ok, I'm finally done with this book, after like forever. For a while there, it was like pulling teeth to get through it, but the later chapters did a lil redeeming action. All in all,it was quite eye opening.
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I'm really trying my best to read this book. But it is very boring--although granted, I'm barely through Chapter 1, and granted, I do try to read it while on the stationary bike. Suffice it to say, it's been a long rid...more
Addendum: ok, I'm finally done with this book, after like forever. For a while there, it was like pulling teeth to get through it, but the later chapters did a lil redeeming action. All in all,it was quite eye opening.
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I'm really trying my best to read this book. But it is very boring--although granted, I'm barely through Chapter 1, and granted, I do try to read it while on the stationary bike. Suffice it to say, it's been a long ride on the bike with this book...
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