The cynical birth of the anti abortion

[KT2000]

movement. Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell joined forces to snare evangelicals as a new constituency for republicans. They were after money too. Prior to their efforts, evangelicals were not concerned with abortion or politics in general. This is a 9+ minute video explaining how this was imbedded into our politics today.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/aug/01/how-a-conference-call-sparked-americas-abortion-obsession-video-explainer

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I have nothing but contempt for such people.

If you don't believe in abortion, then don't have one. Especially if you don't enthusiastically support such things as free pre-natal care for all pregnant women, free day care or child care, food stamps (or their equivalent) so that children don't go hungry and whatever other programs are needed to ensure that all children at the very least get decent housing and education.

[KT2000]

2. "interesting" how they love fetuses

until they are born and then it is cut them off at the knees - medical care, food, housing. Now we are embarking upon "hate the homeless."

[AJT]

3. The things people will do for power.

[Hekate]

4. Special place in Hell for those two. jmho

[no_hypocrisy]

5. December, 1978. I was carpooling with a public school teacher from Lynchburg to a

teacher's convention. Lynchburg at that time just had Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church and Liberty Baptist College.

I was down the road in Amherst County, at Sweet Briar College.

The teacher warned me about how potentially "dangerous" Falwell was and could become. Specifically, she warned that Jerry was poised to "take over the world." I admit I laughed at her. I did. It was just unfeasible. I saw his show on local television and thought he was a buffoon, a stereotype that would fade away within a few years.

How wrong I was. Everyone in Lynchburg was aware of Falwell's lust for power, fame, and money.

And here we are.

[Mc Mike]

6. NRA gun issue and anti abortion were both created to rebrand the Goldwater Nixon repug right.

Allow the bircher right to go on the offensive, when they should have slunk off the stage in shame, and slunk off forever.

[KT2000]

7. I am wondering how the NRA

R marriage happened. So for identity politics they have sewn up the macho/manly men and the pious religious crowd. Both are easy followers.

[Mc Mike]

8. The initiative came from the far right bircher repugs.

""In the 1970s, you see the Second Amendment rhetoric escalate dramatically as an argument against stronger gun laws and to identify gun ownership with American values and historical values," he says. "You find this increasingly heavy emphasis on Second Amendment rights and constitutional rhetoric as part of the argument against enacting stronger gun laws."
The NRA Grows In Power

The escalation of Second Amendment rhetoric also coincided with the increased power of the NRA, Spitzer says. The NRA, which started as a group to help people improve their marksmanship in 1871, became more heavily politicized in the late 1970s, when newer NRA members decided to focus more on halting gun control legislation instead of recreational hunting and safety training."

https://www.npr.org/2011/01/27/133247508/the-history-and-growing-influence-of-the-nra

[KT2000]

9. Thanks

I remember when the birchers were laughable but as you say - look where we are. One of my work life observations: The crazy ones rule because everyone is afraid to set them off. We are there too.

[Mc Mike]

10. They needed to push their far right views on the gop and the public,

but had just been stymied and discredited, by '64 goldwater and nixon's watergate. All the sudden, these crazy non mainline 'christian' groups spring up and a quiet bunch of outdoorsy sportsmen turn into rabid insurrectionists that want a shrike missile to attain weapons parity with the tyrannical big gubmint.

Hunt family, Koch bros, Mercer teabag repugs.

That gang of virulent rightie repugs backed hitler during the war. Funny how the birchers, at bottom, say hitler was right.

[KT2000]

11. As I am reading about this

I keep running into "former" Nazis as part of the foundation for the RW think tanks. Oh man, the roots for the mess we are in go ways back and now they are not afraid to speaks its name.

[Mc Mike]

12. Yeah, but for the most part, they're too bashful to say out in the open or public

that they're proud to be nazis. Instead they scream and cry about how mean people are for calling them nazis.

US loves no Nazis. Whiny crying nazis are worse than the average nazi, even.