How the BFEE is twisting "faith-based" to mean RW Christians.

[barbaraann]

White House Aide Angers Pagans
Towey Suggests Groups Lack Concern for the Poor
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 8, 2003; Page A23

H. James Towey, director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has stirred up a pot of trouble by suggesting that pagans don't care about the poor.

Wiccans, Druids and other pagans across the country, along with the Washington-based advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, are demanding an apology from Towey for his remarks in a White House-sponsored online chat Nov. 26.
...
"Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be used to promote ideology," he wrote, "the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work, and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it."
...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A43967-2003Dec7¬Found=true

They just label any religion that doesn't swallow the BFEE Koolaid as "fringe."

[judge_smales]

1. But everyone else is a god-less heathen.

Obviously they have no faith, or they'd be RW Christians too.

[sable302]

2. It's all about defining the love

To fundies, beating people over the head with the ten commandments is a form of affection.

[9215]

3. Faith based supporter Raskob foundation involved in FDR hit

http://www.korpios.org/resurgent/Coup.htm

THE BUSINESS PLOT TO OVERTHROW ROOSEVELT

In the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs.

The answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. This included some of America's richest and most famous names of the time:
Irenee Du Pont - Right-wing chemical industrialist and founder of the American Liberty League, the organization assigned to execute the plot.
Grayson Murphy - Director of Goodyear, Bethlehem Steel and a group of J.P. Morgan banks.
William Doyle - Former state commander of the American Legion and a central plotter of the coup.
John Davis - Former Democratic presidential candidate and a senior attorney for J.P. Morgan.
Al Smith - Roosevelt's bitter political foe from New York. Smith was a former governor of New York and a codirector of the American Liberty League.
John J. Raskob - A high-ranking Du Pont officer and a former chairman of the Democratic Party. In later decades, Raskob would become a "Knight of Malta," a Roman Catholic Religious Order with a high percentage of CIA spies, including CIA Directors William Casey, William Colby and John McCone.


Raskob Foundation......involved in "faith based" initiatives. google Raskob+Bush A better link: http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazines/1999-09/ednote.html

[tom_paine]

8. Sure, the Busheviks have been treasonous unAmerican for quite some time

No coincidence Prescott Bush was laundering Der Fuhrer's money for him then.

I am amazed, though, at the constant ability of the Busheviks to keep the Imperial Family name out of treasonous activities sponsored by said Imperial Family.

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. The whole faith-based thing may backfire. fundies don't like it because

It does open the regime up to applications from non-Christian groups, and while few doubt that those will be rejected for some oh-so-valid technical reason, it is unlikely that groups who DO want in will meekly agree that they are not suitable for the program.

At some point, the regime will be forced to either officially limit applications to groups who espouse a regime-approved faith, or do away with it entirely.

[DBoon]

5. This is a direct challenge!

I want to see some pagan groups incorporate a "faith based" charity and do some serious work (if they haven't already)!

I then want to see these pagan-based organizations agressively apply for federal faith-based programs.

I challenge the pagans out there in DU - are you up to this?

[SanchoPanza]

6. I don't see how this can be avoided....

The standard line of thinking among the evangelical-right is that if you don't believe in God (and, more specifically, the divinity of Christ), it is impossible for you to be a moral human being. In my own experienced I've been shocked to find out that, once my status as an atheist is divulged to people, quite a few evangelicals have automatically assumed me to be a murderer or a rapist, or something else just as awful.

This has nothing to do with any kind of "BFEE". The Bushes have always been Country Club Conservatives, Junior's fake-ass piety notwithstanding (a genuine spiritual transformation does not come about from spending a week at a Bible camp for rich folks after you quit drinking). Rather, this is just another part of the Cultural War distraction promulgated by those seeking to divide Americans based on religious grounds. Because once working-class Wiccans, Catholics, Protestants, and everyone else start realizing that they have more in common than they think (like getting jointly fleeced by the top 1%), the right loses its hold on power.

[BigDaddyLove]

7. I don't have a problem with his quote.........

he's right.

[SanchoPanza]

9. Read the whole article....

"According to the official transcript, Towey was asked by someone in Centralia, Mo., whether pagan groups 'should be given the same considerations as any other group' that applies for government funds.

'I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor!' Towey wrote."

[BigDaddyLove]

10. Maybe he hasn't.........

have you?

If there are such groups that do as much for the poor as bigger Christian groups, then they should recieve funds....if not, then they shouldn't.

[SanchoPanza]

11. It isn't a matter of degree, or a question of "As Much"

Mr. Towey's statement's weren't relegated to "bigger Christian groups" versus smaller groups of other spiritual persuasions. In his ignorance, he relegated ALL Pagan groups to the status of uncaring for the poor. Had he done his research before making such statements, as the author of the article did, he would know that there is a rather extensive Pagan community that offers community outreach and charity programs. Extensive as, say, the Catholic Church? No, of course not. But extensive nonetheless.

[htuttle]

12. Yes, as a matter of fact, I have

Circle Sanctuary/Circle Network has a long history of doing charity work here in Southern Wisconsin. In fact, after a tornado destroyed nearby Barneveld, pagans from Circle were out there right away giving out food, blankets, etc... They also do food drives, etc...

[Malva Zebrina]

13. I think this was predictable

Christains are 80% of the population. It is indeed an opportunity for the tyranny of the majority over that of the minority. I hate the idea that I am paying my hard earned money toward a religion to preach that I am an infidel, evil and every other bad name the Christians can think of--and that includes the Christians who think their Christianity is superior to that of George Bush's.

Christianity is the same no matter who preaches or practices it. If it is not I do not see anyone coming forth to change it. All I see are Christains with their noses on backwards complaining about Bush's Christianity. And you know, that strikes me as funny. The Christains are fighting each other, they are also fighting the atheists, they are also fighting the Muslims, they are fighting the gays and lesbians, they are fighting the pagans and all they know how to do is fight it seems to me.

Let em fight--it is just really awful that I have to be expected to pay for the nonsense with my hard earned money

Everyone with any sense should resist the faith based charity initiatives. It is specifically against the separation of church and state that is necessary for a true democracy to thrive.

But, it seems, the most greedy of all religions, and churches, cannot understand that when the government takes control of religion there is not any longer "freedom" o0f religion. Those who would have their religion be the law of the land do not understand that when that happens they are indeed, in hock to the government and that will be a very hard position to extricate themselves from. All they see is the money they will get from ALL the taxpayers--and they are there with open palms, kissing the ass of George Bush in order to get it.

Disgusting