The Christian Mafia

According to Time magazine, after Bush’s re-election, a group of evangelicals, not surprisingly known as “The Arlington Group,” wrote Karl Rove a letter signed by former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, Don Wildmon, Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell demanding that Bush not waver and support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Rove is a key Fellowship asset in the White House. Often whistling “Onward Christian Soldiers” in the halls of the White House, Rove was credited with turning out millions of fundamentalist voters in the 2004 presidential election. Rove also managed to turn out hundreds, if not thousands, of evangelical and fundamentalist election “fixers,” who ensured that Democratic votes were suppressed, miscounted, undercounted, discounted, and not counted.
http://www.insider-magazine.com/ChristianMafia.htm


Blackwell, who, as a former Deputy Undersecretary of HUD, was well versed in the art of distributing Bush political slush fund money and ensured that this was distributed far and wide in Ohio. This money is what Republican strategist Ed Rollins once called “walking around money” – money used by Republicans in New Jersey’s elections to pay off African American preachers to turn out the vote for their candidates. In Ohio, this tactic paid off in polling places in churches. Instead of turning out the vote, some local preachers, white and black, aided and abetted in suppressing the vote. One of Blackwell’s closest friends is fundamentalist preacher Ron Parsley of World Harvest Church.
At the New Life fundamentalist church in the Gahanna District of Columbus, machines tallied 4258 votes for Bush when only a total of 628 votes were cast. Similar chicanery and racketeering occurred throughout Ohio and in other states during the vote tabulation and recounting processes. Two of the voting machine companies contracted by Ohio are headed by people who are conservative Republican partisans – Walden O’Dell, the CEO of Diebold of Columbus and the Rapp family that runs Triad Government Systems of Xenia, Ohio. Both brand of machines caused election problems.
For example, several churches in Mahoning County, Ohio were the scenes of voting irregularities. They include:

Price Memorial Zion Church, Precinct 2E, Youngstown (voters were given confusing information and many elderly voters were told their polling place had changed, also voters voting for Kerry had their votes switched to Bush).

Spanish Evangelical Church, Precinct 2A, Youngstown, machines inoperative and switched votes from Kerry to Bush.

Elizabeth Baptist Church, Precinct 2C, Youngstown, one voting machine failed to record votes properly.

Tabernacle Baptist Church, Precinct 3C, Youngstown, one machine failed to record votes.

Martin Luther Lutheran Church, Precinct 5F, Youngstown, one touch screen machine broken the other erased votes.

St. John’s Greek Orthodox Church, Boardman, first two attempts to vote for Kerry go to Bush, third attempt records vote for Kerry. Poll worker brushes off complaints.

St. Nicholas Byzantine Church, Youngstown, machine records Kerry votes for Bush.

The skimming of votes in Mahoning County was replicated across the state. Ohio’s 20 electoral votes were delivered to George W. Bush just like manna from the heavens. For the fundamentalists who took part in the fraud, the “Christian” ends were definitely justified by the Machiavellian ways.

(With this level of success you can bet our boy Stephen Harper is rushing to get Diebold installed in Canada).
Bill Moyers recently wrote that “for the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.” Ever since Abraham Vereide, a misguided immigrant to this country who brought very un-American ideas of Nazism and Fascism with him in his steamer trunk, the so-called “Christian” Right has long waited to take the biggest prize of all – the White House. Moyers correctly sees the Dominionists or “End Timers” as being behind the invasion of Iraq. He cites the Book of Revelation that states, “four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man.” Such words may have their place in Sunday School and in church halls but using such thinking to launch wars of convenience or religious prophecy have no place in our federal and democratic republic. Moyers also rightly sees fundamentalist thought behind Bush’s “faith-based initiatives” and the rolling back of environmental regulations.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world no longer feel the United States is a country that can be trusted. They feel the people who run the affairs of state are out of control and dangerous. Considering the hold the Fellowship and their like-minded ilk have on the United States (and some of its allies) they are correct in their fears.
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There are many such father-son dynasties that hope to ensure a continuation of their shameful racketeering and political chicanery under the corporate “logo” of Jesus: George H. W. Bush to George W. Bush; Douglas Coe to David Coe; Billy Graham to Franklin Graham; Oral Roberts to Richard Roberts, Pat Robertson to Gordon Robertson; Jerry Falwell to Jonathan Falwell; Jeb Bush to George P. Bush; Robert Schuller Sr. to Robert Schuller, Jr., and Sun Myung Moon to at least nine sons (who are known about).

For them and their followers, they should keep in mind something Jesus said, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.”

AND, this fruit be rotten.. to its almighty core.