Drones


Invading Iraq for oil and profit


Supporting fascist and/or dictatorship regimes here there and everywhere the past 50 years


Some christians pfft

Jesus would be tried for sedition, just like he was then .

MARCH 30, 2015 3:29 PM ET

... The New Deal had passed a large number of measures that were regulating business in some ways for the first time, and it [had] empowered labor unions and given them a voice in the affairs of business. Corporate leaders resented both of these moves and so they launched a massive campaign of public relations designed to sell the values of free enterprise. The problem was that their naked appeals to the merits of capitalism were largely dismissed by the public.

The most famous of these organizations was called The American Liberty League and it was heavily financed by leaders at DuPont, General Motors and other corporations. The problem was that it seemed like very obvious corporate propaganda. As Jim Farley, the head of the Democratic Party at the time, said: "They ought to call it The American Cellophane League, because No. 1: It's a DuPont product, and No. 2: You can see right through it."

So when they realized that making this direct case for free enterprise was ineffective, they decided to find another way to do it. They decided to outsource the job. As they noted in their private correspondence, ministers were the most trusted men in America at the time, so who better to make the case to the American people than ministers?

They use these ministers to make the case that Christianity and capitalism were soul mates. This case had been made before, but in the context of the New Deal it takes on a sharp new political meaning. Essentially they argue that Christianity and capitalism are both systems in which individuals rise and fall according to their own merits. So in Christianity, if you're good you go to heaven, if you're bad you go to hell. In capitalism if you're good you make a profit and you succeed, if you're bad you fail ...

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/396365659/how-one-nation-didnt-become-under-god-until-the-50s-religious-revival

Michael Graziano
4 March

... This sets up new and interesting ways to think about the early Cold War period. Kruse argues that the post-war religious atmosphere was as much a function of prewar economic debates as it was a fear of the USSR. For example, Rev. Fitfield’s and Spiritual Mobilization’s focus was on opposing Harry Truman’s “collectivizing” legislative program. In this way, Kruse argues for a reimagining of these early postwar conservatives as opposed foremost to the legacy of the Social Gospel rather than to the legacy of the Russian Revolution. Careful readers will see how Kruse shows, rather than tells, scholars of American religious history that our view of the Cold War period might need some tweaking. These arguments are well-illustrated by a number of choice examples, such as Billy Graham’s line at his revival meetings that the great thing about the Garden of Eden was that it had “no union dues, no labor leaders, no snakes, no disease” (37), or in the framing of midcentury changes to the Pledge of Allegiance as the result of two decades of domestic economic battles (109). And to be sure, Kruse has a point. Narratives of the early Cold War period that point only to the threat of Communism in geopolitical terms miss the ways in which longstanding American domestic conflicts piggybacked on the red menace ...

Kruse is at his best when it comes time to tie together the many Christian libertarian organizations, individuals, and ideas he sketches out in the first part of his book. My favorite is the “Pitchmen for Piety” chapter, where Kruse argues that “the advertising industry discovered religion as a means of professional salvation in the aftermath of the Great Depression” (130). Take, for example, Kruse’s portrayal of Cecil B. DeMille and The Ten Commandments (1956). Kruse shows how advertising, corporate-ministerial relationships, government support worked in tandem to make DeMille’s movie the smash hit it was. DeMille’s hatred of the New Deal (and the burden of dealing with Hollywood unions) led him to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, serve with Spiritual Mobilization, and help popularize Graham’s 1949 LA Crusade. Kruse shows how DeMille intended The Ten Commandments, often cast as part of an East-West competition, to be a critique of ungodly liberal policies at home. (“The happiest man in the world to see a continuance of the Truman regime,” DeMille wrote, “would be Joseph Stalin” [140].) The movie’s marketing campaign involved donating thousands of Ten Commandments plaques to public locations, including courthouses, across the United States. Many of these same plaques would later be fodder for the legal challenges of the “culture wars.” These sorts of examples, housed as they are in short, well-written chapters make for readily teachable examples, too ...

Kruse has done a great deal of work in locating choice primary sources. The notes are impressive. Colorful examples abound, whether in close readings of newspaper coverage of major events, or in the diary of an observer at Disneyland’s grand opening in 1955. This helps Kruse latch onto interesting characters as he explores the web of Christian libertarian relationships. The result is an eminently readable book, chock-full of lively and entertaining anecdotes ...

every small town Preacher wailed about the evil Unions and those Commie Sympathizers lurking in our Schools and Colleges. Same shit is happening still today. Sixty years plus of this fake Propaganda.

back in the day,they were the Preachers and Priest's. Remember it well. Could not get out of that small Shit-hole fast enough.