My personal interactions with tea party folks reveal that many of them are very motivated by religion as well. While that may not have been the things that they were banging their shields about it's a real mistake to assume that they won't turn back to these old topics when the economy returns to "normal".

For that matter, many of them seem more invigorated and brazen about their religious comments than I've seen before. Just yesterday a Christian Conservative in Illinois was escorted out of a government building for attempting to destroy an atheist sign.

I generally agree with your analyses but I think we differ on this one.

I think KCL is basically right, and it's still a nasty collusion between the rich and the religious (how ironic!) BTW, I think Danforth may be one of the few fairly decent Republicans out there, and now he's not even in the Senate anymore.

Let's not entertain any illusions! Rest assured the Teabaggers do believe God is on their side, even if they are expressing more outrage toward a government run by an African-American than toward a government not promoting their particular strain of belief! -Kevo

>"...Israeli treatment of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza to the legalized racial oppression that once existed in South Africa."

Er? What land are the Israelis living on? Were these thousand year old towns 'barren'? What was the former treatment of those individuals... can't return? Putting them in an enlarged prision camp?

Yeah... so un-South African. Jimmy gave up... dammit.

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin,

Most of the time I agree with you, as I often do with EJ. The Republican teabaggers are the religious right. Look at their leaders, look at who makes their statements, etc. ... . The only thing that everyone is unwilling to say is that the religious right is composed of a bunch of ignorant zombies who are manipulated by knowing shitheads, oh,I mean "pastors" who benefit from the policies that the financial wing of the party develop and defend.

I have relatives in leadership in the religious right community, and also in the financial wing and the two are night and day different. This is not going to change, because the Democrats DNA does not contain the genes necessary to manipulate these folks away from the financial wing. Demographics, success in legislation and governing, and the rapid expansion of access to education are the keys.

Another part of the family is from Chile. It was so mind-boggling to see the poor, abused, and tortured support Pinochet. How did he do it? Words and pictures of him with nationalist, sophisticated, and hyper-religious backdrops. Putin does the same, so did W., and Reagan. Obama and Clinton portray the ideal of the joyous self-made man, creating the biggest threat to the religious right complex, where God is given all credit all the time. Simply, they are prideful.

Kevin, go spend some real quality time with these folks it will scare the hell out of you. I guarantee you will never see them as harmless again.

Steve,

It is supposed to be your name, not Kevin's. Must be to much liquor in the past couple of days, I reversed the names on that other blog also. Come to think of it, more coffee and excedrin is due.

Religion isn't a belief or a point of view for the right-wing's leadership, it's a weapon. They're just not using it right now because they're using racism and fear-mongering.

And... why does the pope need a security detail? Don't saints and angels take care of that shit for him?

@HLA: Ever since 1981, when Ali Agca tried to assassinate His Holiness JP 2.0, the saints and angels have been using a Popemobile.

There's a similar (to my jaded perspective) argument made this morning over at BooMan's place re. anti-corporatists, to which I would respond to you both, with a chuckle: thank you for no longer lumping me in with conspiracy theorists.

Oh, wait...

While there never seems to be an diminution of the number of people who believe God is on their side, I think Steve is correct that there has been an ebb in the volume and centrality of religious issues in our society.

However, in contrast to other commenters, I beleive that this ebb will continue. We have never before seen the passing of a millennium (and really, few ever will). It was and is perfectly predictable and understandable that relgious fervor and intensity would peak, particularly a kind of fearful and backward-looking religiosity. We will continue to see that intensity weaken as the years pass into the new millennium. Religion will not disappear, just the millennial huge wave of fervent religious feeling and its manipulation by the powers that be.

Dionne is a smart guy, but I would argue that the tea-partiers and the Religious Right are the same folks, just focusing on economic issues because they are scared to death the Democrats might ask millionaires to pay an extra nickel in taxes. (I don't mean "an extra five per cent"--I mean that the extreme right wing would consider an extra nickel, five cents, one-twentieth of a dollar, reason for secession.)

I wonder if Danforth's new Center on Religion & Politics that allegedly will"seek to deepen the academic understanding of the connections between religion and politics" will avail themselves of the free downloadable and excellent book The Authoritarians, from which John Dean drew much of his material for a couple of his books. It's the best explanation I've ever seen to explain the tangled web between politics and religion in this country, something which acquaintances in other countries have often expressed bewilderment about—as have I, and I live here and have fundies in my own family (not my nuclear family, I'm happy to say). You can download the book in PDF form here. Or check out the Amazon page for the audiobook and check out the reader reviews. Great stuff!

Mmmm.... sacra-licious.

One would hope that Danforth's new Center on Religion & Politics will include in their curriculum the extraordinary book The Authoritarians, which you can download for free here. John Dean used it as a primary reference for a couple of his insightful books on the lamentable connection between fundamentalism and U.S. politics during the reign of George the Lesser. Highly recommended, though something tells me that it might not be on their required reading list at Danforth's new center. I do hope I'm wrong.

I think there is some overlap between the religious right and teabaggers, but not as much as others here think. A lot of the teabaggers come out of the populist libertarian frame of mind and are often highly antagonistic to attempts to impose social conservative strictures. The one I know most closely is a pro-choice woman who fanatically voted for Bush and then McCain. A couple of years ago I thought the Democrats had a good chance of peeling some of these people off, particularly in the Rocky Mountain states.

Sorry about the double post. For some reason the original got delayed and I thought it was lost in the ether for good.

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Which "respectful society" could Danforth be referring to? Certainly not in this country.

Maybe he's recently traveled to some "European-style" socialist country.

Religion isn't a belief or a point of view for the right-wing's leadership, it's a weapon. They're just not using it right now because they're using racism and fear-mongering.

Posted by: hells littlest angel at 12:11 PM

Having a supposedly born again jack ass in the W.H. made having religious vapors an easier thing to trot out knowing Shrubwit would be happy to bless and confirm their hurt and deeply disrespected feelings.

Teabaggerism is a cult of know-nothingness. Indeed they are the wronged among us on every level even when they can't articulate how they've been, or will be, wronged. It requires no brain wattage to hate abstractly. And anyone who doesn't hate abstractly with them is the enemy. As is anyone who doesn't believe in their mysterious discrimination's and perceived put downs. Sounds familiar for some reason.

As hells littlest angel posits, Religion is just another "weapon" or tool. It will sound fresher and maybe carry more punch if it's given a break while they whine about some other crap. Plus, with all the sketchy press regarding The Family and it's miscreant tenants, it might be best if religion cedes the stage to other woeful wrongs for time being.

Hell's Littlest Angel has it right: for Republicans, it's all about gaining and preserving power by creating a majority of voters too angry and fearful to think. It's a time-tested formula of long standing.

The War on Christmas was something they Republicans used because they were winning all their other fights. With the Democrats in power, the Republican's lies have shifted to taking the Chad Mitchel Trio song "The John Birch Society" as a blueprint for success rather than as satire..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG6taS9R1KM

Please, let's not let this meme take root again, that the Fiscal/Libertarian Conservatives have banished the Social Conservatives from their midst, so it's okay for fiscally conservative moderates and liberals fearful of authoritarianism to vote Repub. Worked in '94. The Contract on America said almost nothing about religion. But yet, what was one of the first things ol' professor 'Newt' tried to get thru? A Constitutional Amendment pushing school prayer. Don't kid yourselves, all of this 'Tea Party' stuff is for the rubes in the middle. Do you think they will retake Congress by mobilizing people who mistrust authority? Wall St. may own the Repub Party, but the religious reich makes it go, and they will demand their compensation if they retake Congress.

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