Posted on 06/15/2005 9:48:47 PM PDT by CHARLITE
It seems the L.A. Weekly wants to seek out and destroy Christianity itself instead of any particular sect thereof. I can say this because the newspaper has admitted as much in a recent column (go here). More on that later.
This June 10 column has identified Christians as “Christers,” the kitschy new hate word created by anti-religionists in the U.S.A. to describe their foe: you and me. The Weekly uses this pseudo word some 16 times in the Op Ed even going so far as to make it appear as if the word was used in a Wall Street Journal article. (I guess that makes these religion haters the “Anti-Christers”?)
Apparently, these “Christers” have the gall to arrange boycotts against things in the entertainment and other industries that do not meet their standards and this little article spews several hundred words to excoriate them for it.
Yes, the gall of these people imagining that they should gather together and take advantage of democracy like that to urge people from whom they buy their products to listen to them as customers. The NERVE!
The piece quotes Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, as saying that there is “…a lot of activity by an emboldened grassroots, who think they won the last election on moral grounds. They barely need to threaten a boycott to get those they target to back down.” While somewhat specious I cannot help but laugh at this notion that someone on the left is complaining about a grassroots group launching a boycott to attempt to get the business world to acquiesce to demands. Need we recall that the left pioneered such actions? Apparently, though, sophistry is the order of the day for the left. But who can really be surprised?
Furthermore, if anyone has assumed a pious policy stance upon winning an election it would be the left. The entire “Great Society” that LBJ claimed Kennedy started was based on winning that election and so was the socialist nightmare that FDR saddled the country with in the 30s and 40s.
Later they quote Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, as saying that Christians want a “theocratic oligopoly.” He goes on to mangle the definition of an overly used word with, ”The drumbeat of religious fascism has never been as troubling as it is now in this country.”
Mr. Kaplan is a perfect example of how so many supposed “professors” are misleading their students these days. Apparently, he doesn’t even know the definition of “fascist” nor does he realize the automatic connotation that the word conjures in society since the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Or perhaps he does and he is so filled with hatred that he actually believes his polemics. Perhaps he truly wishes to compare Christians trying to persuade Proctor and Gamble to listen to its consumer base to Hitler’s Nazis. Either way, it would seem dangerous to place him in charge of our nation’s students.
Additionally, Kaplan lacks even the remotest sense of historical perspective if he thinks that today the U.S. is somehow overly or dangerously religious. This country is nearly religion free compared to the 1700s, for instance. Even the 1950s saw more religious fervor than what we are now experiencing.
All in all, he exhibits none of the erudition that a professor should display. But he is not much different form all too many in his profession.
The Op Ed goes on to claim that these religious “Christers” are so out of hand as to threaten a repetition of the McCarthy era.
In true demagogic style the Op Ed ends in a shrill warning. "Unless Hollywood, and the entertainment and broadcast industries, all want to live through an epoch of increasing content blackmail and blacklists, the wealthy folks who make a lot of money from those industries better wake up and start funding intensive and systematic research on the Christian right and its censorship crusades against sexual subversion and sin in the creative arts - or soon it will be too late, and the ‘theocratic oligopoly’ of which Martin Kaplan speaks will be so firmly established it cannot be dislodged.”
Of course, this claim that the “Christers” want a new era of McCarthy is absurd, as well. Joe McCarthy had the coercive power of government behind him, but these disparate grassroots religious groups barely cooperate together much less have any coercive powers to force the business world to bend to their will.
We can conclude from all of this that apparently the editors of the L.A. Weekly want two things:
1). To make the entertainment industry unaccountable to anyone but itself. They obviously feel that the entertainment industry has no reason to cater to or pay heed to its customers. Unless, of course, it is the L.A. Weekly’s ideas that are to be listened to, naturally. If the industry sticks with gay issues, overt sexuality, violence and the like, well things are just hunkey dorie. If it tones down same in response to its customer’s desires, in true capitalist style, then we have entered a new era of McCarthy.
And
2) To destroy the religious with a new Inquisition. I can say the latter, because if our esteemed Mr. Kaplan can morph the English language to fit his own polemic point of view, then I certainly can follow suit, can’t I? He must know. He IS a “professor,” after all.
About the Writer: Warner Todd Huston is a free lance writer and graphic designer. His work ranges from historical essays to popular culture and has been published in several magazines and on several websites. He is the editor for Publius' Forum website at http://www.publiusforum.blogspot.com.
Well-l-l, yes indeed. Who is the biggest liberal left, race baiting shakedown artist over the past 20 years? Can we say "Chicago?".......can we say "Jesse Jackson?"
"Christers". How catchy. That ought to catch on as much as "brights" for people who aren't "Christers".
For those who don't already know it, the L.A. Weekly is our local commie rag that they give away because they can't even sell it in L.A.
Char, where's the BARF ALERT? LOL
They're blowin' taps down here, so I'll bid you Nytol!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
That must be a new rallying cry word the lefty kooks are using...
Christers need to be expelled from Washington and the White House proper if sanity is to return -- and all-consuming war to be avoided. Yet, as my bicycle ride down Church Row demonstrates, Christism is not going anywhere -- it is part and parcel of the American psychological and sociological makeup. Of course, not all Christers are rabid chicken hawks bent on killing another 500,000 or so Iraqis, or are most of them crazed with the desire to convert every last Jew in Israel to Christism. Nonetheless, it seems natural to many Americans for the president to be religious (if he were an atheist or even avowedly secular they would be horrified). This is a problem, especially when religious faith is used as a wedge by special interests and those who do their bidding at our expense. Americans need to realize -- as the founders did over 200 years ago -- there is good reason for a separation between church and state. Allowing Zionists and Christers to dictate and drive foreign policy will ultimately result in disaster -- and thousands, possibly millions of unnecessary deaths.
Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
>>”The drumbeat of religious fascism has never been as troubling as it is now in this country.”<<
Apparently our message is getting through to them. Good.
Here's the article, posted recently:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1422206/posts
Sounds as if it's the typical used buttwipe stacked next to the exits of Tower Records, etc....
The LA Weekly is run by the biggest a-hole leftists on the planet. My guess is some homo is the editor.
That's OK. I read the Last Chapter and I know how this plays out.....
later pingout.
Exponential Hypocrisy. If they had a choice between Christ, filled with love and good works, or Barabbas, a hate filled murderer, I wonder who they would chose?
I guess if you go to church on Sunday more than a couple of times a year, you're a dangerous religious zealot.
Here in Jacksonville FL, that same pre-packaged liberal crapfest is called Folio Weekly.
It's the same garbage and every city has its own franchise.
You have to admit for a 4-color-process paper it makes a good poo-ticket. Strong, soft, and thoroughly absorbent.
So, are those Christies from the southern States then called Sotheby's?
These local weekly entertainment newspaper tabloids are part of a greater network, a communist newspaper association that can be found all across the country in many cities.
In fact, this "trendy" term is probably found in the likes of the Village Voice or The Nation, which LA Weakly is associated with...
If I am a "Christer" and these guys hate "Christers," then these guys are "Anti-Christers."
Ubi es, Torquemadus scit.
Do you REALLY have any doubt? I sure don't. They make that choice every time they vote or open their mouth.
Nam Vet
I've found the Saudi printed korans to be excellent for that specific purpose.
Nam Vet
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