Acting In God Faith: Doing God's Work (Again)

This is indeed laughable:

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DeMint Laughably Claims Republicans Have Been Acting In ‘Good Faith’ To Improve Health Care Reform

Republicans opposed to health care reform have long said that their “objective is to slow this down” in order to “defeat” reform. Earlier this month, Politico’s Chris Frates obtained a copy of a memo authored by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) outlining exactly how Senate Republicans can kill health reform using various parliamentary tactics such as offering “an unlimited number of amendments — germane or non-germane — on any subject.”

Over the past few weeks of Senate debate, Republicans have put their plan into action, using procedural stunts like Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) demand that Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 767 page single payer amendment be read in full on the Senate floor. On Fox News today, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who took delight in Coburn’s effort, claimed that Republicans weren’t just being “obstructionist,” but were working in “good faith” to make “progress” on the legislation:

HOST: Alright, so we read that quote from your spokesperson about how you’re basically being obstructionist and it sounds like you think that’s a badge of honor at this point. But let’s face it. Are you just postponing the inevitable and do the American people really just want you to obstruct it or are they looking for progress here?

DEMINT: We’ve tried to work in good faith with the Democrats for the last few weeks, debating a bill on the floor, proposing amendments. But its turned out that this bill is just a decoy and that the whole strategy’s bait and switch. They’ve been working on a bill behind closed doors that we haven’t seen. That no Democrat other than Harry Reid has seen. And what I mean by obstructing is at least slow it down in time, give us a time to even look at it or read it. But they’re gonna file this bill at the same time they file a motion to cut off debate. Before we even have debate. So the definition of obstruction is really maybe slow it down for a day or two, so we can at least see a little bit of what’s in the bill.

DeMint went on to claim Republicans “have not been in the way so far” and “haven’t held up anything.” Watch it:

DeMint is being willfully misleading when he says that Republicans are acting in “good faith” with their procedural tactics. In fact, he tweeted on Wednesday that the GOP will “do everything we can to stop this government takeover of health care.”

Just last week, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), the Republican whip, told Hugh Hewitt that “none” of the Republican “amendments are designed to make the bill better.” In an interview on WorldNetDaily’s radio show yesterday, Sen Bob Bennett (R-UT) admitted, “We’re not offering amendments in order to fix it.” DeMint claimed he was only trying to “slow it down for a day or two,” but Bennett explained what the real strategy is:

BENNETT: Well, we’re opposed to the bill. That’s the first thing that people need to understand. We’re opposed to the bill and we don’t think it can be fixed. We’re not offering amendments in order to fix it. We’re offering amendments in order force the Democrats to confront some of the bad parts of the bill and force them on the record. To say, oh gee, I’ve opposed this amendment that would have and then you fill in the blank because every amendment we propose is, we propose exposes one of the problems in the bill. Sure, we want to make sure that it does not get voted on in 2009 because the chances that it gets defeated if it gets voted on in 2010 are better. There’s nothing really complicated about that. I think even a journalist in the mainstream media ought to be able to figure that one out.

Perhaps DeMint is confused about what the term “good faith” means.

Good faith indeed on the part of Jim DeMint.

Nevertheless - I think DeMint knows exactly what he means by good faith (emphasis added):

GOP wants to ‘kill health reform through God’s intervention’

Prominent congressional Republicans have turned to Christian activist Lou Engle to help them bring God to their side in their battle to defeat health care reform.

In an online "prayercast" Wednesday night, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann joined a number of Christian leaders in praying that health care reform will be defeated. Leading the prayer was Engle, whose organization Call to Conscience describes itself as a "movement to bring holiness and purity back to America."

On her show Thursday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow played a clip of Engle, the prayercast's leader, discussing California's Proposition 8 last year. If same-sex marriage is allowed to stand in California, Engle argued, it "will release a spirit that is more demonic than Islam. A spirit of lawlessness and anarchy. And a sexual insanity will be unleashed into the earth."

"Liberals are debating whether or not it is smart and ethical to have a mandate without a public option," Maddow said. "On the Jim DeMint and Sam Brownback side of the aisle, they are approaching this rather differently."

During the prayercast, Sen. DeMint said, "If we have the government making decisions about the most personal and private part of our lives, it's so naive to think that that coverage is not going to include a number of things that cause people of faith a lot of heartburn, whether it's funding abortions, whether it's rationing care, whether it's funding medical marijuana, whether it's euthanasia."

Now, watch them piously pray:

Yes - there was our very same Jim DeMint.

Yes - there was the very same Michele Bachmann.

Yes - there was the very same Sam Brownback.

And yes - there was the very same Lou Engle ...

Other luminaries attending this prayercast included Tony Perkins, Randy Forbes, Harry Jackson and Jim Garlow.

Funny how these bozos never pray for anything positive - you know, like the end of disease? Or universal peace on Earth? Or other some such ideals?

Then again - what else can you expect from primitive minds?

Doing God's work indeed ... and then some.

Welcome (again) to our semi-Dark Ages.

(Addendum: one more note added in proof that those bozos just can't pray for anything actually positive and/or noble. And yes - this is the very same Tom Coburn here ... And then in response, here is the enlightened "base" wondering whether their bozos prayed hard enough. Words fail me.)

(Cross-posted from APOV)

"Doing God's Work"

I was struck the other day by how Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein describes himself (h/t): "(...) He is, he says, just a banker "doing God’s work"".

Incidentally, this was in justification for the following position of his (emphasis added):

(...) For Blankfein, in the end, it all comes down to one thing: finding the best, fastest, and safest way to make money with money, then make some more money, with money on top. He’s not interested in a reality check, just a bumper pay cheque for his clients, for his firm, for his staff, for his shareholders and, eventually, he believes, for us (...) Is it possible to make too much money?

"Is it possible to have too much ambition? Is it possible to be too successful?" Blankfein shoots back. "I don’t want people in this firm to think that they have accomplished as much for themselves as they can and go on vacation. As the guardian of the interests of the shareholders and, by the way, for the purposes of society, I’d like them to continue to do what they are doing. I don’t want to put a cap on their ambition. It’s hard for me to argue for a cap on their compensation."

Ergo: unchecked, out-of-control greed - the very cause of the last financial collapse from which we are still trying to recover - constitutes "God's work".

After all - didn't you know that Jesus actually embraced greed and self-interest?

Indeed. Here are other recent shiny examples of what constitutes "doing God's work":

Demonize other religions (especially Muslims): (see also here) This past weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned against allowing “anti-Muslim sentiment” to emanate from the shooting at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan. But that is exactly what some conservatives are doing. Dave Gaubatz, the controversial author of the controversial Muslim Mafia, called yesterday for “a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders.” On his 700 Club TV show yesterday, Pat Robertson claimed that Islam is “not a religion,” but “a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination”:

ROBERTSON: That is the ultimate aim. And they talk about infidels and all this, but the truth is that’s what the game is. So you are dealing with not a religion. You’re dealing with a political system. And I think we should treat it as such and treat its adherences as such as we would members of the Communist Party or members of some fascist group. Well, it’s a tragedy. Our hearts go out to the families who suffered. But those in the Army should be held on account for the fact they let this man loose.

Of course, Christianism is such a sparkling paragon of peace, tolerance and love for others ... and therefore definitely not politically-oriented, right? [EXPAND FULL POST +/-]

Right. Got it good. Nothing to do with religious terrorism. At all. Which leads me to this:

Christian radicalization of the military: (emphasis added; h/t) When Barack Obama moved into the Oval Office in January, he inherited a military not just drained by a two-front war overseas but fighting a third battle on the home front, a subtle civil war over its own soul. On one side are the majority of military personnel, professionals who regardless of their faith or lack thereof simply want to get their jobs done; on the other is a small but powerful movement of Christian soldiers concentrated in the officer corps. There’s Major General Johnny A. Weida, who as commandant at the Air Force Academy made its National Day of Prayer services exclusively Christian, and also created a code for evangelical cadets: whenever Weida said, “Airpower,” they were to respond “Rock Sir!”—a reference to Matthew 7:25. (The general told them that when non-evangelical cadets asked about the mysterious call-and-response, they should share the gospel.) There’s Major General Robert Caslen—commander of the 25th Infantry Division, a.k.a. “Tropic Lightning”—who in 2007 was found by a Pentagon inspector general’s report to have violated military ethics by appearing in uniform, along with six other senior Pentagon officers, in a video for the Christian Embassy, a fundamentalist ministry to Washington elites. There’s Lieutenant General Robert Van Antwerp, the Army chief of engineers, who has also lent his uniform to the Christian cause, both in a Trinity Broadcasting Network tribute to Christian soldiers called Red, White, and Blue Spectacular and at a 2003 Billy Graham rally—televised around the world on the Armed Forces Network—at which he declared the baptisms of 700 soldiers under his command evidence of the Lord’s plan to “raise up a godly army.”

What men such as these have fomented is a quiet coup within the armed forces: not of generals encroaching on civilian rule but of religious authority displacing the military’s once staunchly secular code. Not a conspiracy but a cultural transformation, achieved gradually through promotions and prayer meetings, with personal faith replacing protocol according to the best intentions of commanders who conflate God with country. They see themselves not as subversives but as spiritual warriors—“ambassadors for Christ in uniform,” according to Officers’ Christian Fellowship; “government paid missionaries,” according to Campus Crusade’s Military Ministry.

Furthermore, there is also this, and that, and this, and that - as well as so many other examples of such radicalization that I could easily write a whole book just by enumerating them.

So, who ever dared claim that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are crusades against muslims?

(What? It definitely looks like this is actually the case? Really? Oops - I stand corrected then)

Hence, the following should not be a surprise to anyone:

Beat an orthodox greek priest: (emphasis added; h/t) Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him. That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist. Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions:

The man tried to rob him.

The man grabbed Bruce's crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English.

The man yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.

"That's what they tell you right before they blow you up," police say Bruce told them.

(...) The incident took place around 6:35 p.m. Monday, police said. The priest, Alexios Marakis, 29, is from Crete, Greece. He is visiting St. Nicholas Greek Cathedral at 17 E Tarpon Ave. but police said he was in the Westshore area to bless another retired Greek priest.

But Marakis apparently got lost and exited northbound Interstate 275 into downtown Tampa, police said. The priest followed several cars into the Seaport Channelside Apartments on Twiggs Street. He got out of his car and asked Bruce for help.

Instead of offering help, Bruce struck the priest on the head with a tire iron, police said. He then chased the priest for three blocks to the Madison Avenue and Meridian Avenue, police said, and even called 911 to say that an Arabic man tried to rob him.

Bruce said he was going to take the Arab into custody. When police arrived, Bruce told them the victim was a terrorist.

Oh yes - doing God's work indeed ... and then some. Got that too.

Here's a quicker run-down of further recent, shiny examples of doing God's work:

Vote to kill a proposal that would have ensured that insurance companies cannot use domestic violence as a pretext for denying coverage to women;

Shout down members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus on the House floor when they attempt to give a brief statement about how the House health care legislation would benefit women;

Keep on introducing bills and amendments to limit or stifle women’s reproductive rights;

Deny the reality of global warming;

Reject the fact of evolution;

Reject sex education and promotion of contraceptive usage for teenagers;

Promote abstinence as Teh Solution to AIDS, STDs and unwanted pregnancies;

Force people to pray;

Delay/derail/stop health care reform - but not faith healing;

Kill physicians and bomb abortion clinics.

It goes without saying that the preceding constitutes but a small sampling.

So, what is the point I am seeking to drive here?

Throughout recorded hsitory, and going back as far as into Antiquity, proclamations of "doing the will of the Gods" (or God - regardless of which one exactly), of "doing God's work", have ever been used to justify - and gain support for - just about anything and everything.

From despotism, monarchy, empire-building and theocracy, to war, persecution, genocide, mass murder (one obvious example here), torture, violence and even destruction of knowledge.

Plus ça change, plus c'est pareil.

Hence, doing God's work is nothing more than hypocritical, self-serving justification which not only serves to legitimize base, egotistical, greed- and power hunger-driven self-interest, but furthermore to dodge any responsibility - let alone accountability - for one's actions.

The problem here is that instead of a majority of us calling out such rank hypocrisy, we meekly allow - if not actually fervently embrace - this time-honored justification for doing anything and everything.

Being an atheist, I am by no means an expert on theology. However, were I happen to actually adhere to the catholic faith which keeps on prevailing where I've been living all my life, then I would be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that causing such overwhelming evil while "doing God's work" simply means that, in truth, one is instead doing the Devil's work.

Too bad all those fundie Christians, Muslims and others have their primitive minds blinded to any and all reason to realize such an obvious, simple truism.

Too bad as well for the majority of the rest of us whom are equally guilty of such blatant hypocrisy, such repugnant self-delusion about our grandeur, of our goodness, of our so-called moral high ground.

I say here that any claim of doing God's work constitutes not only a confession, but an legal admission of guilt - of whatever criminal, illegal and/or amoral activity justified by such a claim.

Having stated this, I have little hope that we'll change for the better in this respect any time soon.

Sadly enough.


(Cross-posted from APOV)