Eleanor Heartney talks with Phong Bui

I've come to really look forward to these interviews in the BR. Another excellent one by Phong Bui. Heartney looks back on the emergence of globalism in the context of the waning hours of the Cold War and the culture wars of identity politics. Also noteworthy for today's world, Heartney discusses the role of religion in our new era. This is an issue that I assume many of us are grappling with whether we realize it or not. The 'new' metaphysical presence is certainly dictating a lion share of social and political realities across the world. Artist's need to pay attention to this in some manner.

Excerpts:

RAIL: From my own observations, I do feel that the multiculturalism that arose in the 80s, which as we all know was associated with political correctness and the rise of identity politics, had to do with both cultural and economic aspects of globalism. Hypothetically speaking, though culturally it addresses art as a manifestation of basic human interests, economically it seems tied in with corporate interest and political allegiances. In other words, artists tend to see the world at large, from the inside out, whereas corporate interests see the world as small, from the outside in. This, I would say, inevitably creates a huge conflict of communication, which means that artists are usually put in a position of having to satisfy corporate interests, which is so far removed from their intention. But at the same time we also are aware of the real issue of art being irrelevant, no longer as an isolated phenomenon, pursuing its imperatives or personal ideologies without reference to the outside world. How do you see the polarity?

HEARTNEY: I think globalism is very double-edged. It’s interesting because in the art world, when you say globalization, it tends to be a very positive thing because it suggests this new kind of inclusiveness, which admits different sorts of narratives from different places in the world. But it also of course has this other connotation, certainly on the economic front, which is invested in a variety of aggressive forms of corporatization and homogenization. Not only does it wipe out diversity, it seems to be devoted to making us all into the same sort of consumer. However, for artists, I think they find it both exciting and strange to skate between those two realities when they’re dealing with the global art world.

At the panel last week, which was about art critics and globalization, one of the things that was very clear to most of the panelists was that the explosion of International Biennials over the last three or four years has really been a vehicle for bringing artists from far-flung places and introducing them to the larger art world, which is all good, but each of them requires large amounts of money and has multiple agendas. In some cases there is a hidden political motivation that desires to wipe out some egregious kind of political event from the past. In other cases, it’s simply based on pure economic motivations. Either way, artists who participate in those Biennials are quite aware of the two different agendas, yet they’re also advancing their own agendas. So it becomes very complicated. In my case, I find it very important to figure out, “Why this Biennial, at this place, and at this time?” And then I can go on and look at the individual works.

RAIL: To go back to the late 70s and 80s, the name F.A. Hayek, the Viennese economist who wrote The Road To Serfdom (1944) and Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988), somehow loomed quite prominently in the light of Reagan/Thatcher’s political and economic policies. As we knew then, the multiculturalist view had its advantages and its disadvantages. On one hand, there were those who really advocated for and embraced the so-called redemptive “diffusion” from non-Western cultures, which they thought could perhaps replace the old image of the melting pot that allowed differences to be submerged in democracy. Yet on the other hand, you have those who opposed it, who thought it was an anti-Western ideology, and therefore downgraded or undermined U.S. national culture, while raising the status and power of other cultures. Since you have written extensively on the subject, particularly in Critical Condition: American Culture at a Crossroads (1997), which traced the rise of Neo-Expressionism, appropriation, Neo-Geo, and of course multiculturalism, how would you reassess that decade from today’s perspective?

HEARTNEY: You know, writing that book gave me a chance to think about a lot of those issues. The whole multicultural movement, for instance, laid out the groundwork that preceded globalization. On the one hand, it was very much about opening up the art world to these other voices from other cultures and other traditions that had been excluded. But on the other hand there was something about it that often became very militant and very exclusionary, to the point where people were only allowed to express a certain part of their identity. So the notion that we’re all kind of hybrid and made up of many different aspects kind of got lost there. In Art and Today, I have a chapter on art and identity, which I begin with that unitary notion of identity, and by the end I concluded that we’ve moved to a more hybrid notion of identity as something that is much more free-flowing and changing. In terms of the culture war, it had a lot to do with the rise of so-called “identity politics” and the notion that certain groups—non-white, non-male, non-European—were vying for power in the art world.

What was interesting about the whole culture war that rose really in the late 80s and early 90s was that it coincided with the end of the Cold War and the rise of the global market. In so many ways, I think it was a losing battle for the right, but nevertheless one in which they were deeply engaged; and of course looking back now, one that forms the perspective of a year in which we have elected a black president and the nomination of the first Hispanic woman, Sonia Sotomayor, as a Supreme Court justice. I think it’s kind of amazing when you look back to those wars and think that they really felt that they could hold back this tide.

RAIL: Did September 11th, and its aftermath have any bearing on your next book Defending Complexity: Art Politics and the New World Order?

HEARTNEY: September 11th was such an unimaginable event that changed so many things in our lives. One of the things in particular that I was concerned with in that book, which also overlapped with my other book Post-Modern Heretics: the Catholic Imagination in Contemporary Art, finished right after September 11th, was the way in which religion suddenly was on the table in a very significant way, religion being a subject the art world had long ignored or seen it as a purely reactionary force. At any rate, when Serrano’s “Piss Christ” created controversy, the one thing that the right wing and the art world establishment agreed on was that it was an anti-religion work. Whereas, in fact, it wasn’t simply that; Serrano has a much more complicated relationship to religion.

Nevertheless, it became clear that there were certain things we had to pay attention to which we didn’t before, and part of it was the role of religion. Whether we see it for its positive and negative sides or not, religion wasn’t something that we’d put behind us, as some kind of relic of the past. In fact, it became an evermore important and growing force. And within these various religions, there is a great deal of controversy and dissention, and to see it as a monolith is a mistake. I think the political uses of religion, both on our side as well as on the side of those who perpetrated that disaster on September 11th, became more amplified. In both cases, it empowered the people who practiced the fundamentalist versions, which tend to see things as solely in terms of good and evil. And of course that kind of mentality had been guiding the Bush administration, pretty much up till Obama’s election.

Drawing: Phong Bui

Jeff Sharlet - the Family interview

Guernica recently conducted a fascinating interview with religion journalist Jeff Sharlett regarding his recent publication: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

Excerpt from the (Rawlinson) interview:

One of the most interesting things about anti-intellectualism in American life is that it’s a very intellectual project. Real anti-intellectualism, the Family kind, you know, “Jesus plus nothing,” the systematic stripping away of history, of theology, of any kind of influence—that’s an intellectual project. Not for nothing does Doug Coe express some admiration for Pol Pot. In year zero, he did the same thing. Pol Pot had all the intellectuals killed. You only do that if you have an idea. That’s an extreme form of ideology that says: I can purify things.

There are two great traditions that have been written about before, which are American rationalism and American sentimentalism. What you see in the Family’s expression of power is that these are not two opposite poles, but the head and heart, the realpolitik of world power. The sentimental narrative, which is anti-intellectual—is absolutely interwoven with the rationalist Family agenda.

Palin's Alaskan armegeddon

Alarming footage (June 2005) of Alaska's "God's Commission". Palin's speech accompanied the Wasilla Assembly of God's Masters' Commission, which the church's pastor said will allow Alaska to become a refuge for American evangelicals during the coming "end of days" -- or Armageddon


Here's more on Palin's friend (in the video), Pastor Muthee- at the Christian Science Monitor.
The back story is something like this.

In 1988, Pastor Muthee and his wife traveled to Kenya after being "called by God." Setting up shop in the basement of a grocery store, they claim to have brought 200 people "to God" and away from the town's "spiritual oppression."

The source of the oppression? Witchcraft, Muthee says. When researching the community, they found that a woman named "Mama Jane" ran a divination clinic that drew a large following in the town.

“We prayed, we fasted, the Lord showed us a spirit of witchcraft resting over the place,” Pastor Muthee said.

Muthee made his experiences into a video called Transformations, which documents his "spiritual warfare" against demons and occult practices. Spiritual warfare is more common in Latin America and Africa, where the concept of day-to-day demons has a stronger hold.

"According to accounts of the witchhunt circulated on evangelical websites such as Prayer Links Ministries, after Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned," the London Times noted Tuesday. "Public outrage eventually led the police to raid her home, where they fired gunshots, killing a pet python which they believed to be a demon."

via: rawstory

ABC looks into Palin book banning

collective wisdom vs. t he local bully

Like many of us, I have experienced a real trauma over the past week regarding the Palin pick and the subsequent fright fest of the RNC. Perhaps the most morbid piece of political theater I have ever witnessed in my short 36 years. To say that Palin brings up all kinds of ghosts and shadows from my past is an understatement. The Bush years have taught me one thing, that I continue to have scars from my experience with an evangelical upbringing. If you grew up in a rural place - particularly in the South (and now the SWest) - then you know what I mean first hand, or at least second hand which is bad enough in itself. You are familiar with the local politics of the Sarah Palin's of the world. You've known them in your schools and most likely your church. They are the bullies that seek to overthrow the board of ed. and by extension your city council. They annex the bleachers at middle school and high school sporting events and make sure a kind of unspoken religious bigotry gets conflated into sports competition and adolescent class warfare in school hallways. They have a way of belittling kids that seem "unsaved" or "unchurched" in the proper way. They are your local bully and hypocrite where the only rule is double standards and a vehement hatred of accountability and the common good.

The great thing about this week has been finding some kindred spirits on this subject. The Mississippifarian who does a great service in not only cataloging all the Palin links you need to read but discusses some of the feelings I have expressed above.

Intro:

The Sarah Palins I dealt with in my youth weren’t beauty queens. No, back in my day Catholics were still Catholics, and not converts to the pentecostal movement like Sarah Palin. Where I grew up Catholics tended to stay Catholic because of the profoundly anti-Catholic clique that ruled my world: my Lutheran church’s “100 widows.” With the exception of those elderly busybodies, my hometown was still pretty egalitarian.

But my church was the largest in town, so big we had to split into two softball teams (just like the Catholics). So large we made our own rules, which is why our ALC church sounded more like the Missouri Synod on most Sundays. Like any large group, there were differences of opinion among the parishioners. Some realized that in the ’60s the church needed to reach out to its young people, and our Sunday school classes (which didn’t end until you graduated from high school) started to become more “relevant.” (Younger readers should be advised that relevance was “the” buzzword of the late ’60s.)

Art and Char, two of our more liberal congregants, took responsibility for teaching World Religion to my just confirmed peers (we were mostly sophomores). It was one of the best classes I’ve ever taken in my life. Art and Char didn’t teach us what was wrong with these religions, they taught us what these other people believed, and in so doing helped us to better understand how differently people think in other parts of the world. But the 100 Widows were not amused, and shut us down. Art and Char, as I recall, didn’t even get to finish out the school year. The next year we had to take a class from the leader of the 100 Widows, a well-intentioned older woman who, when challenged, would always say something to the effect of “the devil is here among us, prompting you to ask that question.” And that would be that. She single-handedly pushed most of us away from the church.

Myrtle (that was her name), taught me about power, and how a small group of like-minded individuals could take over a much larger organization like our 1,400-member church (that may not sound large now, but there were only 10,000 people living in the entire county). For me, it was all Mark Twain and atheism after a year of Myrtle. If she was right, then I wanted to go to hell.

Women (and men) like Myrtle were a necessary precursor to the Sarah Palin generation. I have no clue where the power lies in today’s churches, but then it was with the older women. Men didn’t live as long back then because contrary to whatever the liars tell you, hard work will kill you. That and men didn’t used to be quite so churched. I had to read history books to learn how godless the Old West was, but my Dad’s generation still knew families that were defiantly unchurched. By the time I came along it was safe to say that anyone who didn’t go to church didn’t advertise that fact. Not being churched was the next worst thing to being a Communist in my part of Iowa, and I think just about everywhere else in the Cold War U.S.A.

And so countless millions of young people like myself left rural America. Most of us had to because there were no jobs, but in fact it was mostly the “hippies” who left, and the conservatives who didn’t, or who came back after college. Small towns like the ones I grew up next to became more and more conservative, and the evangelicals started showing up in greater and greater numbers.

I think the change came about with Reagan in the early ’80s. Rural communities in the north finally began to see what the South had been living with for so long. Which church you belonged to again became a big deal. For a while, in the ’70s, the old divisions had started to fade away. The evangelicals put a stop to that.

It started with the school boards. The thumpers grabbed a couple of seats and suddenly all the usual crap started: Creationism, anti-evolution crackpottery, book banning, wog bashing, etc. And it wasn’t just old women anymore, these movements were led by male pastors and by working women who subordinated themselves to male leadership. They scared the shit out of my hometown and the majority eventually made it a point to vote in the school board elections so they could be rid of the yahoos.

But they came back. They allied themselves with the jock culture that sprang up with an Eastern German fanaticism in the wake of Reagan’s goalpost-worshipping America. Football was a better wedge issue than Jesus. I had a “braniac” nephew with a fast mouth who put up with a lot of bullying despite being on the football team. (My experiences were much the same but I’m glad to say the bullies didn’t scar my nephew anymore than they did me thanks to good parenting and the fact that our bullies weren’t total braindead steroidal psychopaths li

you've been left behind - but check your email

I'm guessing this is genius on some level - from Wired:

If millions of Christians suddenly disappear from the face of the Earth as the opening act for Armageddon, Threat Level thinks most nonbelievers will be too busy freaking the hell out to check their e-mail. But if they do log in, now they can be treated to some post-Rapture needling from their missing friends and loved ones, courtesy of web startup You've Been Left Behind.

For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture, that day when -- according to Christian end times dogma -- Christians will be swept up to heaven, while doubters are left behind to suffer seven years of Tribulation under a global government headed by the Antichrist.

"You've Been Left Behind gives you one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends for Christ," reads the website, which is purportedly run "by Christians, for Christians." The domain name is registered through an anonymous proxy service, presumably to protect the proprietors from the Forces of Darkness, and not because they're up to anything shady.

and you thought sub-prime predatory practices were sneaky...

angels wanna wear my red shoes

Pope Benedict XVI steps into a limousine upon arrival at Andrews
Air Force Base. Photograph © Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images.

via: (Notes on) Politics, Theory and Photography

Obama and the media's faux populist heart

They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

-Barack Obama

In case you missed it, (but how could you?) the media is a flutter with the above perceived swipe at the working class folks of PA. Certainly a bit of a blunt assessment for Obama who is usually more nuanced, but why the dust up? for whom (insert McCain/Clinton/wingnuttery)? I mean it has become so absurd that Bill Kristol, with an assist from Joe Lieberman is using the “M” word in questioning Obama’s remarks.

Please, is this all they have left to resort to? Red baiting? Is Obama so far off the mark? Doesn’t economic hardship lead to reactionary beliefs? A loss of hope and reliance in leadership? Isn’t this the neo-con argument regarding the spread of Islamism?

These comments are not a big deal and they are not off base in my opinion. I see the transformation of “back home” over the last 20 years. I’m not saying there is a one to one relationship between economic hardship and the type of church you attend, but in many cases it is a factor. The role of church in rural communities is very complex and the Obama comments at worst are a bit tone deaf, but hardly indicate some lack of empathy on his part.

Let’s look at the broader issue here instead of the media’s caricature of the quote – Rachel Maddow excluded of course.

Thomas Frank’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas” looked at the trend of Republican policies over the years, and the impact on the working class.

What we are observing, then, is a populist movement that has done irreversible harm to the material interests of the common people it professes to love so tenderly-a form of class animosity that rages against a shadowy "elite" while enthroning a new aristocracy of bankers, brokers, and corporate thieves.

Obsidian Wings takes this up quite well with the recent Obama PA comments.

From Obsidian Wings:

While his theory may not adequately explain why working class people support Republican cultural policies, it’s far more persuasive in explaining why they support Republican economic policies.

To back up, Frank’s argument is more complex than I suggested in that there are various potential ways to understand it. First, he could be arguing that working class culture is determined by economics. Under this view, religious zeal is actually caused by economic hardship. This is closer to the traditional Marxist view, but I don’t think either Obama or Frank is making this argument. In any event, I think it’s wrong.

The second potential argument is more interesting. It’s not that economics causes the culture wars, but that the culture wars are distractions from economic issues. This one hits far closer to the mark. There’s no doubt that Republicans fan the culture war flames to distract working class voters from other issues.

This “distraction” argument is the one Democrats use the most often, but it too has weaknesses. In particular, it’s not clear why cultural issues should play second fiddle to economic ones. Objectively speaking, economic issues don't necessarily have more value than cultural ones. Sure, most of these cultural grievances seem silly to me, but I drink steamed milk with espresso (sometimes even with delectable pumpkin spices) so what do I know. But seriously, if I thought abortion was truly murder, then marginal tax rates would be a lower priority.

That leads to the third potential argument, which is Frank’s strongest — and the one most damning to working class Republicans. To repeat, it’s not irrational for working class Americans to support conservative social policy. It’s not even irrational for them to support Republicans on the basis of these cultural preferences. After all, I support the Democrats even though I disagree with their slavishness to Hollywood on IP law.

But what is irrational is for working class Americans to support Republican economic policies themselves. It’s one thing to support the Republican Party, but it’s quite another to support its regressive, anti-work, pro-wealth economic policies on the merits. If working class Republicans were acting rationally, they should at least advocate for more populist economic policies within the confines of the party.

OW then asks a crucial question about activism (or lack of) within the Republican party:

But you don’t see that. Unlike the IP example above, it’s not like a big chunk of working class Republicans support the party on cultural issues, yet push behind the scenes for more equitable tax codes or more labor-friendly legislation/regulation. Most are as gung-ho on tax cuts for the rich as they are on gay marriage and abortion.

It’s here, then, that Frank’s “false consciousness” argument gains steam. It’s not so much that the culture wars are distracting people from economic issues. It’s that the culture wars cause people to prefer specific economic policies that they should be opposing.

Specifically, the anger and resentment triggered in the culture wars bleed into the realm of economics. If the liberals like it, it must be wrong. For instance, if contemptible secular liberals prefer gay marriage, then whatever economic argument they are making is probably wrong too. In this sense, the culture wars cause many working class Americans to give their “proxy” to Republicans, even on economic issues.

More on varieties of religious experience at Andrew Sullivan

Michael Kimmelman on the new anti-intellectual fad in politics.

all in The Family

From the jacket

The Family is about the other half of American fundamentalist power—not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a “family” that thrives to this day. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, Doug Coe, the Family’s current leader, declares, “We work with power where we can, build new power where we can’t.”

Sharlet’s discoveries dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not “What do fundamentalists want?” but “What have they already done?”

Looks to be a must read for anyone on theocracy watch here in the states. Also, and alarmingly,
here is a post about candidate Clinton's apparent relationship with the dark prince of the neo-pent mafia. More at Kos here.

I'm glad that a major news outlet is looking into this, not to single Clinton out, because I'm sure she's playing the same game many others are, but bright lights need to be shown on this topic. too much is at risk. These people need to be identified and removed from the political process.

via wood s lot, daily kos, dark christianity

anatomy of a smear: the Obama campaign

White Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim. - Pew Foundation.

NOW on PBS tracked this smear campaign back in January - Anatomy of a Smear.

Timeline of a Smear

2006: The first chain e-mail circulated on the Internet contending that Obama is Muslim. (Politifact and other fact-checking websites have been unable to pinpoint the exact date)

Jan. 17, 2007: A discredited news story from InsightMag.com, "Hillary's team has questions about Obama's Muslim background," reported that Obama had attended a madrassa, an Islamic religious school, as a child.

Jan. 19, 2007: Fox News' Fox & Friend First and Fox & Friends highlighted the report from InsightMag in its coverage without discrediting it. The weblog Think Progress noted that Fox even took caller comments about the allegations.

Jan. 20, 2007: New York Post article titled 'Osama' Mud Flies at Obama quoted Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson saying, "We have no connection to this story."

The week of Jan. 20, 2007: CNN, ABC-TV and the Associated Press sent reporters to the school Obama attended and reported that it was not a religious school but a public school.

Jan. 23, 2007: Washington Post article by media columnist Howard Kurtz, "Headmaster Disputes Claim That Obama Attended Islamic School", reported that the school Obama attended was not a religious school but a public school.

March, 15, 2007: A Snopes.com website article titled "The Enemy Within" dispelled the claim that Obama is a "radical, ideological Muslim."

Sept. 16, 2007: A photo of Obama that would later be used as the basis for anotherTime photo read, "Respect: Senator Barack Obama, Governor Bill Richardson, Senator Hillary Clinton and Ruth Harkin stand during the national anthem."

Oct. 2007: The first chain e-mail accompanying some version of an e-mailed photo circulated on the Internet questioning Obama's patriotism based on its contention that Obama refused to put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. One of the e-mails read: "He refused to not only put his hand on his heart during the pledge of allegiance, but refused to say the pledge ... how in the hell can a man like this expect to be our next Commander-in-Chief?"

Oct. 27, 2007: Snopes could not find any information substantiating the claim that Obama refused to put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance. However, they did say that the following claim, "Photograph shows Barack Obama without his hand over his heart while the U.S. national anthem is being played," is true.

Nov. 9, 2007: The St. Petersburg Times publishes an article "E-mail assailing Obama's patriotism misses mark" pointing to the original Time photograph as evidence that the e-mail rumor makes a false claim. The article also discusses the new phenomenon of chain e-mails "ricocheting" around Internet.

Nov. 11, 2007: A video from ABC News confirmed that the photo was taken during the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Nov. 29, 2007: The Washington Post publishes an article, "Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him", by political reporter Perry Bacon Jr. exploring the rumors that Obama was Muslim. The article did not explicitly dispel those rumors.

Dec. 9, 2007: In response to "ferocious" criticism from readers and others, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell addresses Bacon's story in a column titled Refuting, or Feeding, the Rumor Mill. She writes: "My problems with the story...were that Obama's connections to Islam are slender at best; that the rumors were old; and that convincing evidence of their falsity wasn't included in the story."

Dec. 13, 2007: Despite being debunked by mainstream news organizations, the claim that Obama didn't place his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance is repeated on Bill O' Reilly's show. In response to a caller who says she's disturbed by Obama's alleged action, O'Reilly doesn't correct her and, according to MediaMatters.org, replies: "I think that Obama needs to answer some questions about his point of view, not only on the USA, but on a lot of things." negative rumor was taken in Indianola, Iowa, at the Harkin Steak Fry, an annual political event hosted by Sen. Tom Harkin. The caption on the

via: Art Levine/HuffPost/PBS NOW

seasonal greetings

image: Jennie C. Jones

banana theory

cocerning political theology

The twilight of the idols has been postponed. For more than two centuries, from the American and French Revolutions to the collapse of Soviet Communism, world politics revolved around eminently political problems. War and revolution, class and social justice, race and national identity — these were the questions that divided us. Today, we have progressed to the point where our problems again resemble those of the 16th century, as we find ourselves entangled in conflicts over competing revelations, dogmatic purity and divine duty. We in the West are disturbed and confused. Though we have our own fundamentalists, we find it incomprehensible that theological ideas still stir up messianic passions, leaving societies in ruin. We had assumed this was no longer possible, that human beings had learned to separate religious questions from political ones, that fanaticism was dead. We were wrong. - Mark Lilla (NY Times mag)

The above quote from the this article - The Politics of God.

I confess I haven't read it but on the surface it seems relevant but then again the media seems to fail a lot at understanding the "faith factor" in contemporary American politics. Yes we have our fundamentalists and they are in major seats of power. This is not simply an Islamist phenomenon or the oriental other.

Larval Subjects produced this great quote from Marx on his blog thread about the above article.

There’s that terrific passage in Capital– “The Fetishism of the Commodity and Its Secret” –where Marx remarks that Protestant Christianity is the perfect religion for capitalism:

For a society of commodity producers, whose general social relation of production consists in the fact that they treat their products as commodities, hence as values, and in this material form bring their individual, private labours into relation with each other as homogenous human labour, Christianity with its religious cult of man in the abstract, more particularly in its bourgeois development, i.e. in Protestantism, Deism, etc., is the most fitting form of religion. In the ancient Asiatic, Classical-antique, and other such modes of production, the transformation of the product into a commodity, and therefore men’s existence as producers of commodities, plays a subordinate role, which however increases in importance as these communities approach nearer and nearer to the stage of their dissolution. Trading nations, properly so called, exist only in the interstices of the ancient world, like the gods of Epicurus in the intermundia, or Jews in the pores of Polish society. Those ancient social organisms of production are much more simple and transparent than those of bourgeois society. But they are founded either on the immaturity of man as an individual, when he has not yet torn himself loose from the ummbilical cord of his natural species-connection with other men, or on direct relations of dominance and servitude. They are conditioned by a low stage of development of the productive powers of labour and correspondingly limited relations between men within the process of creating and reproducing their material life, hence also limited relations between men and nature. These real limitations are reflected in the ancient worship of nature, and in other elements of tribal religions. The religious reflections of the real world can, in any case, vanish only when the practical relations of everyday life between man and man, and man and nature, generally present themselves to him in a transparent and rational form. The veil is not removed from the countenance of the social life-process, i.e. the process of material production, until it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control. This, however, requires that society posses a material foundation, or a series of material conditions of existence, which in their turn are the natural and spontaneous product of a long and tormented historical development. (Fowkes trans, 172-173)

The operative words here are “cult of man in the abstract”, where the subject is conceived as separate and independent of his social and historical relations, i.e., bourgeois individualism reflected in the “personal relationship with God” and the ahistoricism of these religious movements. Yet how are Badiou and Zizek not simply giving us simply a secular form of this structure or phenomenon, and thereby reproducing, at a certain level of social relations, the very thing they claim to be targeting

Good question...

there is glory here

If you could have a miracle what would you want? Expect it Believe it Don't leave without it!

Couldn't resist this Benny Hinn parody (followed by a real and tragic news story of the reality) And people wonder why the left gets trumped by the religious right...



tip: sinners guide

holy highway

In case you missed the new 10 Commandments - of driving...

holy chocolate

Ok, so I wasn't even going to give the latest "Jesus/art" controversy much thought but seeing that I have shown at The Lab gallery (NY) and know the now re-signed director Matt Semler, I had to say something. Watch the clip - it features Opus Dei thug Bill Donohue attempting to bash the artist and conveniently slandering all artists, you know, us "unemployed" dirt bags.

My first thought is groan, as religious symbols like this are an easy lightening rod - a quick way to get your name out. You know that you are going to get attention. But alas, it is fair territory with a long tradition within the church and art history and the piece looks somewhat interesting. It is certainly much less graphic than many of the Christs I've seen in churches throughout Italy.

What pisses me off additionally beyond censorship, is the sullying of artists in general by the Catholic League. This CNN piece further illustrates why artists need to be literate and able to speak for themselves. Cosmo does a decent job but I would have loved to been in his place. I would have had harsher words for that bigot Bill Donohue who if you notice makes a veiled violent threat against the artist. Donohue also displays his 6th grade intelligence.

Again I'm reminded of Sam Harris' contention that religious moderates give cover for fanatics like Donohue who is little more than a money changer at the temple.

So who is Bill Donohue? (from Media Matters)

William A. Donohue, president of the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, has made 23 guest appearances on TV news programs in 2004. Donohue uses his appearances primarily to attack gays and progressives. He has referred to the "gay death style," remarked, "God forbid we'd run out of little gay kids," claimed that Senator John Kerry "never found an abortion he couldn't justify," and claimed that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular ... Hollywood likes anal sex."

In 2004, prior to the November 2 presidential election, Donohue appeared on cable news programs 15 times and twice on network news shows. During his two network appearances, on NBC's June 12 Saturday Today and ABC's February 25 Nightline, he discussed Hollywood films' portrayal of Catholics. Since the November 2 presidential election, Donohue has appeared as a guest six times on cable news shows, including four appearances on MSNBC's Scarborough Country. Here are some examples of his comments from his appearances:

• I will stake my reputation on it right now! People will be paralyzed when they see this movie [The Passion of the Christ]. They will be breathless. It will bring people back to the church, and it will be a good thing for Catholics and Jews. And the people who are clamoring this -- this rhetoric, this cacophony against Mel Gibson, boy, are they going to have to pay for it when it's all over! [CNN, Paula Zahn Now, 2/4/04]
• The fact of the matter is the media elite have an aversion to religion. Some of them even have a phobia and some of them are obviously anti-religion. ... They want Tom, Dick, and Harry to get married. They want "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. They don't want anybody to see The Passion of the Christ. It's all tied together. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 2/24/04]
• After all, 15-year-olds, they go to abortionists. They get their babies killed without parental consent. The new Puritans [those criticizing The Passion of the Christ] don't seem to worry about that. They like gay sex. They like [the film] The Dreamers, a brother and sister who bathe together and stuff like that. The same people in The New York Times who say this movie, I don't think it's not really right for kids, they have no problems when it comes to sodomy. It's smoking they don't like and Catholicism. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 2/25/04]
• Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style. There are certain things that the left won't tolerate. They are censorial at heart. Indeed, the signature appetite of the left has always been power. Now, they are running up against the American people. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 2/27/04]
• Well, first they said it [The Passion of the Christ] was anti-Semitic. That didn't work. Then they said it was too violent. That didn't work. Then they said it was S & M. That didn't work. Then they said it was pornography. That didn't work. Now they're saying it's fascistic queer-bashing. That kind of language would ordinarily get somebody taken away in a straitjacket and -- put you in the asylum. I don't know what about -- the queer-bashing is all about. I'm pretty good about picking out who queers are and I didn't see any in the movie. I'm usually pretty good at that. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 3/12/04]
• There's nobody in the United States Senate who has a more radical voting record on abortion than John Kerry. He's never found an abortion that he couldn't justify. ... Well, first of all, the guy [Kerry] is an idiot. He doesn't even know there never was a [Pope] Pius XXIII in the first place. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 4/12/04]
• Well, no. I'm saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights that is to cooperate in evil. [MSNBC, Hardball, 10/21/04]
• We've already won. Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism. We have nothing in common. But you know what? The culture war has been ongoing for a long time. Their side has lost. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/8/04]
• This same guy [Dean Hamer] came up with this idea of the gay gene. I remember when that conversation was going on. Gays were all of a sudden worrying if people would start aborting kids when they found out the DNA suggested the kid might be gay or God forbid, we'd run out of little gay kids, so all of a sudden, they became pro-life. [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 12/14/04]

The Catholic League, which Donohue has led since 1993, purports to defend Catholics' right "to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination." The League has protested numerous art exhibits and theater performances around the United States that it perceived to be anti-Catholic. In 1994, the group sponsored bus and subway advertisements discouraging condom use.

During a 2001 appearance on Hardball, Donohue articulated his opposition to stem cell research as follows: "You can't take the egg of the bald eagle and kill it or move it, and yet we're talking about human embryos as if they were a piece of putty, and if that were the case, we might as well serve them as appetizers at a human embryonic cocktail [sic: party] to people." In 2003, Donohue defended a controversial remark made by Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) equating homosexuality with bigamy, polygamy, incest, and adultery, saying: ''To defend the institution of marriage is pro-civil society. This traditional institution cannot be defended if all alternative lifestyles are treated as its equal."

Members of the Catholic League's board of advisers include conservative author and media analyst L. Brent Bozell III; conservative radio host and syndicated columnist Linda Chavez; right-wing pundit and author Dinesh D'Souza; former Republican presidential and senatorial candidate Alan Keyes; and National Review Washington editor Kate O'Beirne.

Prior to leading the Catholic League, Donohue was a sociology professor at La Roche College, a Catholic college in Pittsburgh. He was also an adjunct scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. He has authored several books, including Twilight of Liberty: The Legacy of the ACLU (Transaction, 2001) and On the Front Line of the Culture War: Recent Attacks on the Boy Scouts of America (Claremont Institute, 1996).

* not all links are active

Haggard's massage table on Ebay

This hot piece of evangelical history is now going for $1175.00.
Only 10 years old, looks barely used - if only ;)


tip: evangelicalright.com

the haggard county cure

couldn't resist this brilliant illustration over at Evangelical Right on the Ted Haggard 'recovery'.

Sam Harris vs. Andrew Sullivan

If you don't know Sam Harris - you should. Get a copy of The End of Faith and see if you aren't altered in some substantial ways. It is a fascinating and impeccably argued book about the nature of faith. If you are a believer - you may get rattled by it. That cage rattling is exactly what is happening in a discussion, rather smackdown between Harris and Andrew Sullivan over at beliefnet. When it comes to critique - Harris is a force. Here's a sample:

Contrary to your allegation, I do not "disdain" religious moderates. I do, however, disdain bad ideas and bad arguments--which, I'm afraid, you have begun to manufacture in earnest. I'd like to point out that you have not rebutted any of the substantial challenges I made in my last post. Rather, you have gone on to make other points, most of which I find unsurprising and irrelevant to the case I have made against religious faith. For instance, you claim that many fundamentalists are tolerant of dissent and capable of friendship with you despite their dogmatic views about sex. You also remind me that many devoutly religious people do good things on the basis of their religious beliefs. I do not doubt either of these propositions. You could catalogue such facts until the end of time, and they would not begin to suggest that God actually exists, or that the Bible is his Word, or that his Son came to earth in the person of Jesus to redeem our sins. I have no doubt that there are millions of nice Mormons who are likewise tolerant of dissent and perfectly cordial toward homosexuals. Does this, in your view, even slightly increase the probability that the Book of Mormon was delivered on golden plates to Joseph Smith Jr. (that very randy and unscrupulous dowser) by the angel Moroni? Do all the good Muslims in the world lend credence to the claim that Muhammad flew to heaven on a winged horse? Do all the good pagans throughout history suggest that Mt. Olympus was ever teeming with invisible gods? As I have argued elsewhere, the alleged usefulness of religion--the fact that it sometimes gets people to do very good things indeed--is not an argument for its truth. And, needless to say, the usefulness of religion can be disputed, as I have done in both my books. As you may know, I've argued that religion gets people to do good things for bad reasons, when good reasons are actually available; I have also argued that it rather often gets people to do very bad things that they would not otherwise do. On the subject of doing good, I ask you, which is more moral, helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think God wants you to do it? Personally, I'd much prefer that my children acquire the former sensibility. On the subject of doing bad: there are, at this very moment, perfectly ordinary Shia and Sunni Muslims drilling holes into each other's brains with power tools in the suburbs of Baghdad. What are the chances they would be doing this without the "benefit" of their incompatible religious identities?

Ouch! do take the time to read the whole thing

via Larval Subjects

caught up in the spirit

"I have a soft spot in my heart for literalists because I used to be one," he said in the film. "There's nothing wrong with a fifth-grade understanding of God [or the Bible], as long as you're in the fifth grade." - Rev. Laurence Keene

The past weeks have seen more attention (so it seems) and substantial dialogue on the religious right. Much is do in part to the new Chris Hedges book and also the interview with Jim Wallis.

Maud Newton has a heartfelt and darkly humorous "testimonial" on Jesus Camp -the embattled evangelical summer camp for kids which has been accused of brainwashing.

Jodi Dean speaks on the film Hell House which follows a local church's efforts to gain converts using "alternative" theater during Halloween. She describes the believers as loving and earnest - something that shouldn't be lost upon observers. This human diminsion is real and we have to come to terms as to why people are turning increasingly to carismatic faiths and cultist fantasies of escape, Utopia and of course revenge. The world is evil and the believers are the beleagured weathering the constant venom of that world. All zealousy is based on some form of this. Even Scientology places itself in opposition to modernity through the filter of psychiatry.

Seemingly right on cue there is another piece with Chris Hedges, this time at alternet.

The Radical Christian Right Is Built on Suburban Despair.

The engine that drives the radical Christian Right in the United States, the most dangerous mass movement in American history, is not religiosity, but despair. It is a movement built on the growing personal and economic despair of tens of millions of Americans, who watched helplessly as their communities were plunged into poverty by the flight of manufacturing jobs, their families and neighborhoods torn apart by neglect and indifference, and who eventually lost hope that America was a place where they had a future.
This despair crosses economic boundaries, of course, enveloping many in the middle class who live trapped in huge, soulless exurbs where, lacking any form of community rituals or centers, they also feel deeply isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Those in despair are the most easily manipulated by demagogues, who promise a fantastic utopia, whether it is a worker's paradise, fraternite-egalite-liberte, or the second coming of Jesus Christ. Those in despair search desperately for a solution, the warm embrace of a community to replace the one they lost, a sense of purpose and meaning in life, the assurance they are protected, loved and worthwhile.

There has been, along with the creation of an American oligarchy, a steady Weimarization of the American working class. The top one percent of American households have more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined. This figure alone should terrify all who care about our democracy. As Plutarch reminded us "an imbalance between the rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics."

Believers, of course, clinging to this magical belief, which is a bizarre form of spiritual Darwinism, will be raptured upwards while the rest of us will be tormented with horrors by a warrior Christ and finally extinguished. This obsession with apocalyptic violence is an obsession with revenge. It is what the world, and we who still believe it is worth saving, deserve.

Now consider that millions are believing that position in some form or another - not in refugee camps but at the local strip mall.


* Also I'm sort of surprised I'm only coming to this website now but the Evangelical Right is a great place to catch up on all things theocratic.


image: HLIB