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stepnw1f Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:37 PM
Original message
Bush Supporters are a Cult
Just as the followers of Manson. Nothing he did could ever be deemed as wrong. Extreme and dangerously sick. ALL OF THEM.
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NVMojo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:39 PM
Response to Original message
1. great way to frame the zombie koolaid drinkers ...
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afdip Donating Member (660 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:39 PM
Response to Original message
2. kool-aid's on the house for them . . .
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Bluebear Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:41 PM
Response to Original message
3. I *RESENT* that insinuation!!!
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KingFlorez Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:42 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. That picture proves it
That lady needs some serious help
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Richard D Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. They all do
Look at the people in the background too. Same vacant eyes. Terrifying.
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stepnw1f Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:44 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. That Picture Says It All
You would think this guru was watching Elvis perform. Yet instead she looks on a murderer the same way an Elvis fan did. Scarey!
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Richard D Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:49 PM
Response to Reply #3
9. That is terrifying.
I mean, people on strong drugs don't look that zombified.
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mcg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:55 PM
Response to Reply #3
21. Bushwashed, reminds me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers,...

The Puppet Masters, ...

These people are deceived, they are victims of mind control.
I know the look, I was once in a cult.

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EVDebs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 04:54 PM
Response to Reply #21
38. Pod people ! n/t
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grannylib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 08:08 PM
Response to Reply #21
41. It is so true, they have all ODd on the rePiglican Kool-Aid. Terrifying.
Bunch of soulless, mindless freaks.
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Pacifist Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:00 PM
Response to Reply #3
23. That picture gives me the creeps every time I see it.
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sarcasmo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:41 PM
Response to Reply #3
27. Is this women at church or a Bush Cheney rally?
Whack jobs everyone of them.
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sickinohio Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:50 PM
Response to Reply #3
30. Is she praying or having an
Edited on Sun Oct-23-05 02:51 PM by sickinohio
orga*m?

She looks like one of those people that goes to a so-called religious shrine, where all of a sudden Jesus face appears in the the rust on the side of a old water tank somewhere, and then suddenly, thousands of people are stopping by to pray at the water tank!! That happened some years back, on the outskirts of a small town around here. Jeeez, people never cease to amaze me.

I don't believe people like this lady will ever realize what an idiot their pResident is.
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 03:44 PM
Response to Reply #3
34. But she won't be singing
Oh Holy Night this Fitzmas :rofl: :rofl:
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Richard D Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:42 PM
Response to Original message
4. Oldie but well worth the read
The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party
a public information project from TheocracyWatch.org

(This is an article by Chris Hedges that no major publication would print. Full article at http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm)

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN FASCISM

By -- CHRIS HEDGES

Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

He was not a man to use the word fascist lightly. He was in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and worked with the underground anti-Nazi church, known as The Confessing Church, led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Adams was eventually detained and interrogated by the Gestapo, who suggested he might want to consider returning to the United States . It was a suggestion he followed. He left on a night train with framed portraits of Adolph Hitler placed over the contents inside his suitcase to hide the rolls of home movie film he took of the so-called German Christian Church, which was pro-Nazi, and the few individuals who defied them, including the theologians Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer. The ruse worked when the border police lifted the top of the suitcases, saw the portraits of the Fuhrer and closed them up again. I watched hours of the grainy black and white films as he narrated in his apartment in Cambridge.

He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities that he said would, in the event of prolonged social instability or a national crisis, see American fascists, under the guise of religion, rise to dismantle the open society. He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil nor the cold reality of how the world worked. The current hand wringing by Democrats in the wake of the election, with many asking how they can reach out to a movement whose leaders brand them "demonic" and "satanic," would not have surprised Adams. Like Bonhoeffer, he did not believe that those who would fight effectively in coming times of turmoil, a fight that for him was an integral part of the Biblical message, would come from the church or the liberal, secular elite.

snip

This was a radically new interpretation for many in the evangelical movement. The Messiah, it was traditionally taught, would return in an event called "the Rapture" where there would be wars and chaos. The non-believers would be tormented and killed and the elect would be lifted to heaven. The Rapture was not something that could be manipulated or influenced, although believers often interpreted catastrophes and wars as portents of the imminent Second Coming.

Much more here: http://www.theocracywatch.org/chris_hedges_nov24_04.htm



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Freedom_from_Chains Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. Could not have said it better myself.
"He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent"

And this is how the democratic party has been behaving. At best they are trying to figure out how they too can become part of the god squad.
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noahmijo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #4
11. That's a fantastic article should be required reading for all
Edited on Sun Oct-23-05 12:51 PM by noahmijo
Reommended for all. Most of what is in here is common knowledge to your average DU'er however, it does a fantastic job of putting things into perspective for the person who isn't a political junkie.
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deadparrot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:59 PM
Response to Reply #4
22. If you haven't read Hedges' "War is a Force that Gives us Meaning,"
I highly recommend it. It has some amazing reflections on religious fundamentalism of every stripe.
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cassiepriam Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 12:46 PM
Response to Original message
7. The American Taliban
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William Seger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #7
12. Probably worse
Even the Taliban don't believe that some kind of Rapture is about to make life on Earth irrelevant.
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ClayZ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:20 PM
Response to Original message
13. Extreme..... like the past!
Edited on Sun Oct-23-05 01:26 PM by ClayZ
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BrklynLiberal Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:33 PM
Response to Original message
14. That is exacty how I have been describing them for years.
Edited on Sun Oct-23-05 01:34 PM by BrklynLiberal
There is no reasoning with them..or talking with them about reality.

They are like the guys in "The Manchurian Candidate".
"George Bush is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."

Edited for clarity
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mwb970 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 09:34 PM
Response to Reply #14
45. Gee, that sounds like Harriet Miers... (n/t)
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patricia92243 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:36 PM
Response to Original message
15. VERY interesting. I've never thought of it that way, but now that you me
mention it, I do believe a LOT of his supporters are the type that would join a cult - gullible and easily influenced.
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barbaraann Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:37 PM
Response to Original message
16. I think that at bottom it's a Ronald Reagan cult.
GWB tries to be a reincarnation of RR--ranch, cowboy attitude and clothing, trophy wife, anti-government, us-against-them, etc.

Or maybe it's really just the latest incarnation of the Barry Goldwater cult--the independent-minded, straight-talking, self-sufficient Westerner persona.
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NAO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 03:42 PM
Response to Reply #16
33. Beneth the Ray-gun cult, deep under R'lyeh - it is...The Cult of Cthulhu
That is not dead which
can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons
even death may die.
-- Abdul Alhazred:
Al Azif

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barbaraann Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 03:46 PM
Response to Reply #33
35. OH NO!!!!!!!
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Initech Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:47 PM
Response to Original message
17. Yeah, there's no question that W supporters are a cult!
They are a cult that hides behind some deep, weird perspective of Christianity that's EXTREMELY dangerous to our society.
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Cults4Bush Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:51 PM
Response to Original message
18. Tell me about it! Check out my name... lol.
Its true and they are cultists by any definition.
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Cleita Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:53 PM
Response to Original message
19. Your assessment of his supporters is probably the
best explanation to make any sense of why they adore him. Now how does a drooling idiot like him do it?
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mcg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:46 PM
Response to Reply #19
28. The poppa Bush and junior got training from Sun Myung Moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Myung_Moon

Moon has deep ties to the right-wingers.
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DemReadingDU Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 01:53 PM
Response to Original message
20. I thought I was the only one who said this
that Bush supportors are a cult, they've been brainwashed.

Most are too busy to read the facts, just repeat the lies that are spread by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hanity.

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ClayZ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:01 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hanity are Ministers of Propaganda
The cults are happy to have their MOP's think for them.

:crazy: :dunce: :crazy:
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Pacifist Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:04 PM
Response to Reply #20
26. Nah, there have been quite a few of us saying this for some time now.
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Pacifist Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:03 PM
Response to Original message
25. Seems the dictionary concurs.
At least the fifth definition is eerily accurate in my opinion.

Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing.

The first may be more of a stretch for some people but I think it equally applicable.

A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.



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grannylib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 08:10 PM
Response to Reply #25
42. The only part that doesn't fit is the 'charisma' part; the Imbecile is
about as charismatic as rotten meat.
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Pacifist Patriot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 09:05 PM
Response to Reply #42
43. Charisma doesn't necessarily mean likeability.
I find him about as likeable and attractive as a bout of diarrhea, but he does seem to possess "A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm. Though clearly popular devotion and enthusiasm for him is finally eroding thank heavens.
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:49 PM
Response to Original message
29. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
stepnw1f Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 02:57 PM
Response to Reply #29
31. Awwwwwwwww
I'm so sorry I do not rise to your level.

:nopity:
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earth mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 04:09 PM
Response to Reply #29
36. Why does the truth about the cult of * sound hateful?
They're the ones that hate everyone else who isn't like them!

:puke:

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NAO Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 03:37 PM
Response to Original message
32. Depth Psychology Exegesis: "The Bush Cult" and "Bush Supporters Deny"
Two important articles to understand the mentality of Bush supporters:

THE BUSH CULT
by Paul Levy
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/bushcult.html

excerpt:

It is a shattering experience to see through our imaginary projections and recognize that someone we thought was leading and protecting us does not have our best interest at heart. People who support Mr. George Bush resist and turn away from the irrefutable and readily available evidence that Bush is anything but a good leader, as if they are in denial with a capital D. Bush is saying one thing and doing totally the opposite, and many people are simply in denial of this and look away. It is truly as if people who support Bush are not only in denial, but are actually refusing to look and hence, blind to what to most of the world is very obvious. It is as if people who support Bush are under a hypnotic spell, and are suffering from a form of collective brainwashing. People who support Bush in his pathology are exhibiting nothing other than the groupthink of cultic behavior.

Followers of a cult unquestioningly give their power away to their leader’s version of reality. People in a cult have dis-connected from their discerning wisdom, which is the ability to discriminate between the opposites, between truth and lies, between good and evil. In a cult, any sort of reflection of the leader’s unconscious shadow is not only not allowed, but is severely punished. The cult leader is typically insulated from people who disagree with him, not even wanting to come in contact and have any connection with people who have a different point of view. People in a cult exhibit complete and total denial with regard to any evidence that contradicts the agreed upon belief of the cult. This perfectly describes people who are following Bush as their leader. People who follow Bush are completely in denial about his truly criminal behavior.

People who belong to a cult always get hooked through their unconscious fear and blind spot. The cult members’ relationship with each other is based on mutual unconsciousness, as they reciprocally reinforce each other’s denial and illusion. In a cult, there is always some form of mind-control, such as the Bush Administration’s control and manipulation of the media. “Staying on message” is the typical communication style within a cult. The cult leader plays with people’s fears so as to gain their trust and control them, which is a process that is not based on love but on power over others.

There are always aspects of a cult that are kept hidden and secret, which is the mechanism that keeps its hierarchical power in place. In a cult, this inequality of power ensures that a form of abuse always gets unconsciously acted out. In a cult, the members identify with only one side of an inherently two-sided polarity, projecting out the marginalized shadow. Hence, people who disagree with the cult are seen to have fallen under the spell of the Devil. Members of a cult are convinced of the rightness of their point of view, which they consider non-negotiable. Hence, there is no room for the open dialogue and debate which is at the core of a true democracy. Cults will even suppress and distort science to serve their ends, just like the Bush Administration is doing for partisan political ends. And the cult leader is (arche)typically either identified with God or feels he has a special relationship with God. Cult leaders and their followers see themselves as agents of apocalyptic, end-time scenarios, which is one of the more disturbing aspects of Bush and his supporters from the religious right.

full article at above link.

WHY DO BUSH SUPPORTERS DENY THE OBVIOUS?
by Paul Levy
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/bushsupporters.html

excerpt:

To quote Stanley Hilton, Bob Dole’s former chief of staff and a long-time Republican, “George Bush makes Benedict Arnold look like a patriot. He makes Benedict Arnold look like George Washington. I mean that’s what we have- a criminal and traitor sitting in the White House pretending he is a patriot, wrapping himself in the flag.” The evidence of Bush and Company’s corruptness and duplicity is beyond overwhelming, and it is literally everywhere, staring us in the face. Why are so many people looking away and not noticing? I find myself no longer interested in trying to convince anyone of what a madman, criminal and traitor Bush is, though it’s not for lack of trying. What I find more fruitful is to contemplate why people who are supporting Bush are both unwilling and seemingly unable to see the evil that is playing out through him. People who follow Bush are in denial about something that to the overwhelming majority of the world could not be more obvious.

The denial of people who support Bush is a form of blindness. People who support Bush are refusing to look at what is right in front of their eyes, an evil that they themselves are complicit in and participating in by their denial. People who are following Bush are acting out of their unconscious. It is as if they have fallen asleep and are dreaming, entranced by their own projections. It is as if they are bewitched, having fallen under a spell. They are living in what John Kerry calls “a fantasy world of spin,” ignoring and oblivious to any facts that contradict their worldview. It is exactly like they are hypnotized, like they are brainwashed. People who follow Bush are behaving exactly like members of a cult who have blindly and unquestioningly given away their power to their leader. They have left behind their critical thinking, dis-connecting from their capacity to discern truth from fiction. Not to mention selling their soul in the bargain. People who support Bush are suffering from a collective psychosis. Why else would they be supporting a madman for President? It is shattering to look in the mirror and see that we, as a people, have gone temporarily mad.

There is a psychic epidemic manifesting in our country right now, and millions of people in our populace have fallen prey to it. There is no sense pretending otherwise. It is of the most profound importance that we notice and understand the psychological nature of the collective malady that we, as a people, are suffering from. Understanding the psychological nature of our illness gives us insight into how to treat it. By looking away from what Bush is doing and naively supporting him, people are complicit in and feeding Bush’s malignant psychosis. There is something about the depth of depravity, though, that is enacting itself through the Axis of Evil represented by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Rove and others that is so dark that it induces in some of us a tendency to pretend that it isn’t really happening. The malevolent energy that is playing itself out through Bush is very hard to look at. People look away, as it is too horrific. The intensity of the evil provokes people to rationalize it, to justify it, to explain it away. It triggers a tendency in people to fall asleep. We like to imagine that people couldn’t be THAT corrupt, THAT two-faced, THAT evil. It is truly shocking to see the depth of depravity a human being can fall into. It is doubly shocking when we realize that these criminally insane individuals control the most powerful nation on earth.

For people who are not seeing the evil of Bush and Co, the great doctor of the soul, psychiatrist C. G. Jung would point out that it is not a matter of preaching the light to them, for they are unable to see, as if they are blind. Rather it is a question of teaching people the art of seeing. In order to teach people how to see the absolute evil that is playing itself out through George Bush and Co, we must come to terms with the darkness inside of ourselves that Bush is a reflection of. This involves seeing the fascist in ourselves. This is where we see our potential for being, unwittingly or otherwise, an instrument of evil ourselves, based on our own capacity for self-deception, our own greed, our own lust for power, our own fear, anger and hatred, our own delusion, ignorance and unconsciousness. For archetypal evil is a power, or a principality that exists within God’s totality, which is to say, ourselves. Archetypal evil is something we are all capable of. It is an awe-full, shocking and humbling experience to look into the dark side of our nature, to see the monstrousness of our totality, to see what we are capable of. In other words, in order to teach people how to see we must be able to see ourselves.

full article at above link.

More articles on The Madness of George Bush at Paul Levy's site, "Awaken in the Dream"

http://www.awakeninthedream.com
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mcg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 08:05 PM
Response to Reply #32
40. "Don't judge Bush.", mind control techniques
"In a cult, any sort of reflection of the leader’s unconscious shadow is not only not allowed, but is severely punished."

People in the Bush cult say "Don't judge Bush" or some variation on that edict (like adding 'yet' or whatever). It's the same as 'Don't judge the _____' (fill in the blank with Guru, Swami, Pope, CEO, ...). As if it is somehow wrong to even question his character or actions. Oh no, we're just supposed to be good little Bushbots and blindly follow The Great Leader, who do we think we are to accurately assess Bush? I actually got this type of response from a former co-worker who was angry that I criticized the 'Commander in Chief', as if Bush getting that position put him beyond reproach.

This is a dominance/submission thing.

Why shouldn't we judge Bush - NOW?

Mind control
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_control

Mind Control - The BITE Model
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/articles/BITE.htm





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EVDebs Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 04:53 PM
Response to Original message
37. Two websites give creedence
Globalsecurity.org 's 'from the Nile to the Euphrates'
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/greater-israel.htm

especially the final two paragraphs

""Forcing God's Hand (by Grace Halsell) explains the popularity of the Christian element of this End Time doctrine. A Tennessean, Cyrus Scofield, popularized the idea of a Free Rapture, a theology originally imported from England less than 200 years ago. The theology holds that Christians must look to the biblical land of the Jews for their salvation; that the land itself is more important to Christians than the message of Christ. Scofield taught that Christ was held hostage until Jews carried out a preordained plan: they were to leave their native lands, including Russia, Europe, Africa and America, and settle in Palestine. They were to eradicate, with the help of Christians, the most sacred Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, a mosque holy to a billion Muslims around the world; and once Christ returned, the Jews must convert to Christianity. His doctrine, called dispensationalism, was encoded into the Scofield Reference Bible.

But by 2005 public sentiment in Israel seemed to have rejected the ideal of an Israel expanded to biblical proportions (Eretz Yisrael Hashleima). Former chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau said he had resigned himself to the possibility that realizing Eretz Yisrael Hashlema may not be attainable in this generation. "It is unreasonable to expect too much of one generation," he said. "The curses mentioned in Leviticus and Deuteronomy came true during the Holocaust. That same generation experienced the ingathering of the exiles, fought seven wars and built the Jewish state. Perhaps Eretz Yisrael Hashleima will have to wait.""

The only error in this is that 'dispensationalism' originated with the Jesuits in the 16th century during the Counter-reformation, see Francisco Ribera under the website
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/antichrist.htm

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Helga Scow Stern Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 06:07 PM
Response to Original message
39. The movie Downfall shows the pattern pretty clearly....
everyone should see it.
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Poiuyt Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 09:33 PM
Response to Original message
44. The New American Religion: George Bush as a Cult Figure
Bush has an "aura of certainty" about him that his followers like:

http://sun-tzu.mydd.com/story/2005/8/21/165238/262

A reader on my blog comments that George Bush is like God to the right-wingers. She makes a very good point; the new American religion is the belief that George Bush is the most infallible person since the Bible was completed 2000 years ago.

This religion, which I will call Bushism, is a logical extension of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalist Christianity is a belief system in which the Bible is infallible and the final authority by which to determine right from wrong. Derived from the Bible is a set of beliefs by which fundamentalists determine who is really Christian and who is not:

SNIP-

These events do not actually have to be factually true to be meaningful to the faithful adherent. Therefore, when you try to tell a Bushist follower that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, it will go inside one ear and out the other because it does not fit their narrative. The facts that Iraq had no WMD's or that gays are not out to recruit followers or that there is no grand New Age conspiracy trying to corrupt our youth or that laws against abortion do not reduce abortions will similarly go in one ear and out the other. Facts do not matter to these people. Only their religious narrative, as dictated by their master George Bush does.

This explains why George Bush refuses to admit error -- if he were to meet with Cindy Sheehan or to admit that he made a mistake in invading Iraq, he would lose face with the legions of cult followers who voted for him in November. He is more afraid of losing his devotees than he is of Cindy Sheehan or any of his other critics.

Religious figures -- good or bad -- have the kind of appeal they do because they have an aura of certainty about them. Jesus, Mohammed, Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Lao-Tse, and other religious figures communicated to their followers with a near-absolute degree of certainty the meaning of life to people who were lost and looking for answers in an uncertain world. The gift of being able to communicate certainty to an uncertain world is a rare gift which cannot be taken lightly. It can be used for great good as well as great harm.

George Bush has such a gift of communicating certainty. However, he has grossly misused that gift and has wreaked great harm on this world as a result. The hundreds of thousands of people killed in Iraq along with the many broken lives that have taken place are a direct result of the fanaticism of his legions of followers, Congressional enablers, and appointees who allowed themselves to be seduced by Bush's cult of personality and check their brains at the voting booth.

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Tom Joad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Oct-23-05 11:44 PM
Response to Original message
46. One more time, i do not think this was appropiate...
I will put this in more polite terms. I find this post without political merit, and an over generalization. It gives us nothing to act upon. It is not worthy of Democratic Underground. It is simply hateful.

Saying all Republicans (and i think the original post meant all people who vote Republican, not just Republican leaders) = Manson followers is very inappropriate.

In saying this, it is not a defense of Republicanism at all. It is not that i don't share any anger toward people's short-sightedness.

I would suppose here in DU most people have friends and family members (Aunt or Uncle or brother or neighbor...so on) who for one reason or another vote Republican. Like me, i suspect many of us value the relationships we have with those people. We see them as whole people, with some personal qualities we like, some we do not (no different in how we look at others who may share our political perspective). If we simply look to people as "the enemy", some unredeemable person, then not only will that hurt us personally, but it will certainly also hurt us politically to take this approach.

I say this because i have been guilty of doing this (thinking i am superior because of my political correctness) as well.
I think i missed something because of it.

This is an attitude, a total rejection of the personhood of all our political opponents, is something we should let the Free Republic forum have a monopoly, they certainly do it well there (and is a place I could not imagine Republican people in my life would go near, see they are not all alike, people are complex).

I do not think it belongs here. I think we can do better. Kindness counts.
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opihimoimoi Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Oct-24-05 12:09 AM
Response to Original message
47. Worse than JWs, Worse than Dave Koresh Cult, Worse than BD&D,
Worse than Leader Worship.

Worse than OBSTINATELY IN DENIAL.

99.999999 per cent HOPELESS,

Will not accept truth/reality/proof/history/Research/etcf. Rigid.
Confuses Stubborness with Loyalty.
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