Falwell's demise is like closing bookend on Radical Right Era

[yurbud]

I remember Falwell's rise to national prominence in the 70s, a few years ahead of Reagan's election.

While his star rose and fell throughout the right wing assault, he was one of the few participants who was a prominent player throughout the whole era.

His death is symbolic of the withering of the stranglehold the right has had on our democracy for the past couple of decades.

If somebody thinks it's impolite to criticize him on the day of his death, think of the deaths he enabled not just in Iraq, but in Central America and other places where the right would not have had a free rein if Falwell hadn't convinced Evangelicals that the Republicans were god's party.

He even pissed on 9/11 victims when he said the attacks were God's punishment for being nice to gays.

If he is remembered at all in a few decades, the people of the future will wonder what kind of society gave him so much prominence and power.

[treestar]

1. Your last sentence really sums it up

It even transcends the idea that Chimpy may not have been elected, undermining the idea that people of the future will really have to wonder about the society that chose him as Prez.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. Nice picture!!

[yurbud]

5. looks like Pelosi gave him a wedgie or she just told him it's time to change his diapie

[orpupilofnature57]

2. Good , Christianity could use the break from self-imbued saviors.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Except that Dobson and Robertson are still with us, so the wind of cruel

blowhards is still with us. But I guess there is always be someone.

[yurbud]

6. I used to be Evangelical in the 80s, and didn't associate Dobson with political

religious right until the Bush era.

Maybe someone gave him a financial incentive to expand the range of issues he discusses.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Maybe. Or he just got old. That can do weird things to people sometimes :^( n/t

.

[wuushew]

10. Focus on the Family is hurting for money

I had to endure some aweful local radio during a road trip recently and they were practically begging for money.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Let 'em suffer. "Bring up Boys" is enough reason for them to shut down.

What bunk.

[Coyote_Bandit]

12. Ummmmm

Fundies beg for money. Nothing new about that. Doesn't necessarily mean that they are hurting for funding either. Might mean that the money is being misappropriated with a disproportionate share going into somebody's personal accounts. Might just be that they are hustling contributions to give the faithful an opportunity to "plant seeds of faith into fertile ground in order for God to multiply them back." It's called the prosperity gospel - and Dobson has a strong following among these folks.

[yurbud]

14. that's typical of religious broadcasters even when they are flush.

[Wiley50]

7. Another Fascist bites the dust. Did people grave dance when Hitler died?

I wasn't real comfortable, initially, when the grave dancing started

But I've been listening to Randi play Falwell clips all afternoon

And, yeah, if anyone deserves it............

[KoKo]

8. We have a few more to go, though. Robertson, Dobson and the

various hangers on and newbies flooding the cables with their RW Armageddon, screwed Biblical values.

I wouldn't breathe a sigh of relief just yet. His EVIL SPAWN still SPEW their DOCTRINE OF HATE!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

13. Yes!

...you are completely right. The nightmare that was Falwell has been with me half of my life and the impact he and his ilk have had on our country and its politics cannot be overstated.

This man was one of the architects of the rightwing takeover of our country. And he was grooming the next generation of religious nutters to carry on his work.

Everything Dems have been fighting against for the past 20+ years is a direct result of the rise of Falwell and crew. Damn straight I look at Falwell's death through that lens.

[yurbud]

15. and if the Dems as a party had been fighting it, it might not have gotten as far

instead, maybe half our elected officials tried to figure out how to get some of that religious right, war-mongering mojo going.

Over time, we have to pinch off those loafs and flush twice so they don't crawl back up.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

16. You are so right.

Nothing makes me sicker than watching a Democrat play the "let's reach out" crap to the rightwing religious nutters. :mad: Dems who do that shit are part of the problem. There are amazing Christians/evangelicals in the country -- but I am only interested in the ones who are natural alleys, not the ones who we as a party would have to give up core issues to attract. I will NOT sell out gays/lesbians or womens rights or a less hawkish foreign policy to get some Falwell dick sucker to vote for our party. And the day the Dems as a whole do that is the day I leave the party.

[yurbud]

20. Dems figure out solutions to perception problems that make them worse

pandering to the religious right, the war lobby, and wall street doesn't make them look smart and savvy, it makes them look craven.

The way Dems could look tough is put on a pair of pointy toed cowboy boots, go up to a couple of the corporate patrons of the GOP who are really screwing the American people like big oil, health insurance companies, pharma, and credit card companies, and kick them square in the nuts. Then pick them up by their feet and shake the money they stole out of their pockets. Then feed them to wolves, and ask who wants to be next.

That's tough.

Trying to outbid the GOP on useless weapons systems is cowardly.

[kwolf68]

17. I don't agree

Just as Paul Wellstone's death was not the end of a true progressive cause, don't think because Falsewell is now dead that his lemmings won't continue to 'wage God's war'.

These people have their lives wrapped up in keeping God on the dollar bill, prevented gay people from enjoying the spoils of freedom, stopping the teaching of evolution in schools, and making abortion illegal. Falsewell's death does NOT end their movement. In fact, Jerr wasn't even the leader of the movement any longer. I argue the movement, the radical right-wing Christian movement is now a living organic being, much like the Blob of tv movie fame. The meteor that created the blob may be gone, but the Blob remains.

Oh no...The Christian right is here to stay. My only hope is that many of them are more moderate than we are lead to believe and they actually start working for USEFUL stuff like feeding the hungry, curing the sick, and bringing peace to the world, you know that nutty Liberal shit Jesus tried to do.

The real righties...will fight till death.

That all said, I do agree that the man is wide open to hard critique...He brought it on himself

[tom_paine]

18. NEVER assume NAZIS OR BUSHIES are finished!

Totalitarianism goes on FOREVER, and it appears that 10-30% (when their ranks are swelled due to cultish-type propaganda, as the Bushies have so successfully done) of human beinmgs DON'T WANT FREEDOM.

The 28% of Loyal Bushies, to name them outright.

We thought we beat the Nazis, then the Loyal Bushies of the 50s brought them over for a generation of dinner, dancing, drinks, anmd lively agreeable conversation about the Final Solution for "Liberals".

Then they ventilated the heads of the strongest Democratic Leaders in the 60s, Kennedy, Kennedy & King...all assassinated by "lone gunmen".

Yeh, right. Your Loyal Bushies at work again.

We thought the system worked when Nixon resigned, but we did not see the cancer that we left to grow and metastasize later.

During Iran-Contra, Loyal Bushies committed treason. Operation Mockingbird v2.0 made sure that the Dems were too afraid to impeach.

Even still, there was some sense that the system still worked.

It didn't, and now we have the monstrous afterbirth of totalitarian evil, the Busheviks who's crimes are more numerous and severe than most Mafia bosses' rap sheets.

These people NEVER GO AWAY. They have always been with us and they always will. They are always waiting to be handmaidens of evil, and I have no doubt that some of them are perfectly nice in their regular lives (so long as you don't belong to any group the Party has told them to hate). They WANT to be lead, they WANT to feel superior, they WANT to deny reality that interferes with the fantasy their Masters have lead them to.

(plus, to leave the reality would be an agonizing self-recrimination and self-condemnation to realize they have been made fools of for so long, and that they are responsible, Good-German-style, for so much death, pain, murder, and criminality, most would rather deny to the death than acknowledge such)

NEVER assume they are finished because they ARE NEVER FULLY FINISHED.

Ignore this at your own peril.

[Telly Savalas]

19. Closing book-end?

We've got troops in Iraq, 45 million Americans without health insurance, and the threats to reproductive rights are the greatest they've been since Roe v. Wade.

[KG]

21. maybe the end of the begining, hardly the begining of the end.

falwell was already a fading light, his acolytes are still holding the torch and pitchforks. his death does nothing to stop the xtian takeover of the US.