Definition - The American Taliban

Let's put it right up front: "The Newsroom" is fiction, drama, designed (mostly) for entertainment purposes.  Will McAvoy is a fictional news reporter and anchorman, who gets his script from Aaron Sorkin.

That said, let's get the points he makes here down for the record:

Those points again:

  • Ideological purity
  • Compromise as weakness
  • A fundamentalist belief in scriptural literalism
  • Denying science
  • Unmoved by facts
  • Undeterred by new information
  • A hostile fear of progress
  • A demonization of education
  • A need to control women's bodies
  • Severe xenophobia
  • Tribal mentality
  • Intolerance of dissent
  • Pathological hatred of US government

Too much of the above is Christian Reich True-Believer ideology, taken to its logical conclusion.  It is the petulant spoiled-brat mentality, insistent on its own way and throwing tantrums until it gets its way.  No compromise, no "reaching across the aisle," my way or the highway.  What it is is one-party government, Karl Rove's ideal of a "permanent republican majority" ... and a de facto obviation of the principles which this government was founded on.

No, women are not having their noses chopped off or acid splashed in their faces for exercising their rights ... but the point is that there should be NO challenge of their rights based on illegitimate sources, and the bible is in no ways legitimate as an authority on what a woman's rights should be.  Yet women's rights to control their bodies IS being challenged.  Bullshit is being promoted as fact (witness Todd Akin) and pseudo-science approved for teaching in classrooms in Tennessee and Louisiana.  Religiosity remains a bellwether for suitability for public office while atheism remains anathema.

Not one of the points mentioned above deserve to be any form of American policy, yet several of them, in modified or disguised form, are current planks in the GOP platform.  I find that disconcerting and frightening, at minimum.

Don't you?

Tags: American Taliban, Karl Rove, TEA Party, The Newsroom, Will McAvoy

Views: 822

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Pat on September 3, 2012 at 10:35am

They rail against Sharia law, but in reality they embrace the idea. They just want the Christian version.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 3, 2012 at 10:55am

Precisely so, Pat.  It's an old and apt observation that people don't like seeing things that too well resemble them, especially in reminding them what they don't like about themselves.  The fact is that Sharia law and Mosaic law have entirely too much in common, something that right-wing christians are doubtless aware of at some level or other and too much in denial about.

What "Will McAvoy" does above is blatantly point out the parallels, by calling out the policy points then associating them with a term which SHOULDN'T be associated with American ideals or actions and yet is undeniably a part of them: Taliban.

This is a part of the task of saying, "The emperor has no clothes" is about: calling a spade a spade.

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on September 3, 2012 at 11:24am

Good visuals can bring home just how scary these beliefs are!

Austin Cline at atheism.about.com put new text on 41 government propaganda posters (mostly from WWI and WWII) to highlight some Christian Right beliefs. The collection was apparently created during the Bush era, but remains salient today.

Christian Right Propaganda Posters: How the Christian Right Might Promote their Agenda, Beliefs

 

A few thumbnails (linked to the corresponding pages) :

 

               

 

            

 

              

 

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 3, 2012 at 11:41am

Can't help but notice all the talk in the above posters and associated text about "islamo-fascism."  It's amazing that they can't see their own christo-fascism ... but then, they're SO convinced that they're RIGHT.  HOW could they EVER be fascists?!? [groan!]

Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on September 3, 2012 at 12:10pm

"It's Not Fascism When Christians Do It"!

In an illustration of Poe's Law, many of those posters could have been created by the Christian Right! (I was fooled by the Boy Scouts poster from this series, reproduced at "Hitchens Watch".)

Some, though, are clearly over the top. The full text of #5 (my second example) :

IT'S NOT FASCISM WHEN CHRISTIANS DO IT

Secret Prisons, "Alternative Interrogations", Warrantless Spying

You're free now, but for how long?

or #40 (second to last example):

Killing Innocent Civilians is WRONG!
...and we'll keep bombing Muslims until they learn this.  

Permalink Reply by Dan Harkins on September 3, 2012 at 12:18pm

And yet Karl Rove is an atheist! If only atheists had some form of excommunication to purge horrible sh*t stains on humanity from our ranks.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 3, 2012 at 12:25pm

Karl Rove is an atheist?!?  How does the rest of the TEA party tolerate him?  Hell  of it is, he's everything the Christian Reich accuses US of being like: unprincipled, without morals, predatory, etc.  HE's probably where they get this BS from in the first place!!!

Permalink Reply by Susan Stanko on September 3, 2012 at 3:19pm

He refers to himself as agnostic.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 3, 2012 at 3:27pm

I refer to him after another fashion ... one you don't repeat in polite company.

Permalink Reply by Pat on September 3, 2012 at 12:26pm

As big a sh*t stain as Rove is (and he is), I'll give the guy the credit. He's incredibly adept at organizing the gullible for his own personal, political, and financial gain. It's not the Sarah Palins, or in his case Bush, one needs to guard against. It's their handlers.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 3, 2012 at 12:29pm

Not so much the puppets, but the puppet-masters, eh?  That reminds me how much money the Koch brothers have funneled into the TEA party, never mind republican presidential candidates.

Puppet masters, indeed.

Permalink Reply by Pat on September 3, 2012 at 1:55pm

And before the Koch Brothers, it was Dick Armey funneling money through various channels, to bus the screamers in (from other congressional districts) at the town hall meetings to oppose health care and threaten violence. Puppet masters is correct.

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