Clinton Bashes Rev. Wright, Worships With Nazis? (BlackVoices.com)

[Leo 9]

Clinton Bashes Rev. Wright, Worships With Nazis?

Posted Mar 28th 2008 3:11PM by Alexis Stodghill
Filed under: BlackSpin, Elections, Hillary Clinton


By Alexis Stodghill, BlackVoices.com



Obama is being harshly criticized for having a pastor who holds challenging views on race in America. Hillary Clinton has used this moment to express her religious views, chiming in: " would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

Interestingly enough, a story has broken about the type of "church" Hillary Clinton does choose to attend: an organization cultivated in an open quest for power with a controversial history, an un-Democratic modus operandi and ties to destructive political regimes. These facts will be explained in detail in 'The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,' by Jeff Sharlet to be published in May.

Columnist Barbara Ehrenreich reports that Hillary seeks spiritual guidance by worshiping with The Family, "a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum." During the 1940s this religious organization "reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolf Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs."

Interesting. To quote Ehrenreich further:

The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's 'dominion' on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power -- cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't

snip

http://www.blackvoices.com/blogs/2008/03/28/clinton-bashes-rev-wright-worships-with-nazis/

---------------------

Here's the mentioned Barbara Ehrenreich article.


Hillary's Ties to Religious Fundamentalists

By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted March 20, 2008.


When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, Hillary Clinton is a lot more vulnerable than Barack Obama.

There's a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the "Fellowship," aka the Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" -- their term -- and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family's home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners -- alone.

The Family's most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes -- knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, the Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolph Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper's in 2003:

snip

http://www.alternet.org/election08/80248/


Here's another thread devoted specifically to the second article.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5299324&mesg_id=5299324

[Melinda]

1. Whoop, there it is.

Pleased to have given first K&R

[Leo 9]

4. I found the story when I did a news search on parsley hagee & mccain.

Hillary’s prayer cabal

by Michael I. Niman

snip

The story doesn’t end with McCain. While we were all watching YouTube cliplets of Obama’s pastor, the press also continued to ignore Hillary Clinton’s troubling religious cell. The Nation last week ran a book review by Barbara Ehrenreich, about Jeff Sharlet’s forthcoming (to be released in May) book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Sharlet, in conducting research for his book, went to live in a group home run by a Washington, DC-based religious group, the Fellowship (known more informally as the Family), which Hillary Clinton joined as First Lady in 1993.

As senator, Clinton is now among the group’s leaders. While the group’s religious calling is unclear, its political leanings are horrifically clear. Former and current members include former Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, Indonesian dictator General Suharto, Salvadoran general and convicted mass torturer Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova and Honduran general and death squad commander Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, as well as American politicos such as John Ashcroft, Ed Meese and Rick Santorum. This is a disturbing bunch of bedfellows for sure—regardless of their religious beliefs. Connect the dots. It ain’t pretty.

snip

http://artvoice.com/issues/v7n13/getting_a_grip

[Leo 9]

27. Thanks! Too bad this story has yet to make the Greatest page.

:(

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Leo 9]

3. There'll be more than four articles on this when Jeff Sharlet 's book comes out in May.

Results 1 - 4 of 4 for The-Secret-Fundamentalism-at-the-Heart-of-American-Power

Clinton Bashes Rev. Wright, Worships With Nazis?
Blackvoices - Mar 28, 2008
These facts will be explained in detail in 'The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,' by Jeff Sharlet to be published in May. ...

Getting a Grip
Artvoice, NY - Mar 27, 2008
... Barbara Ehrenreich, about Jeff Sharlet’s forthcoming (to be released in May) book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. ...

Hillary's Ties to Religious Fundamentalists
AlterNet, CA - Mar 20, 2008
Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May. ...

Hillary and The Fellowship
The Moderate Voice - Mar 27, 2008
... who has written a soon-to-be-released book on The Fellowship called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. ...

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=%22The+Secret+Fundamentalism+at+the+Heart+of+American+Power%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

[anonymous171]

5. This would be the "May Surprise" if Clinton somehow got the nom.

[Leo 9]

6. Right wing media likes right wing authoritarian fundi wealth & power cults,

so they'll probably not even mention the book, or if they mention it at all it will be to call it crazy.

We'll probably be talking about it though.

[anonymous171]

8. I'm not so sure. McCain is religiously tone deaf.

He panders, but he really doesn't care about the social conservatives and they don't really care for him. If anything this could put more indy's into his camp. The RW media may love fundy wealth and power cults, but they hate fascism (european fascism, not corporatist fascism.)

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[anonymous171]

9. This has been reported in numerous other publications.

[babylonsister]

10. What does that have to do with anything? Are black people not

allowed to research and write articles, or have opinions? :eyes:

[anonymous171]

11. Apparently they all are Obama shills.

:eyes:

[ellacott]

12. Or is this person trying to say that Black people don't know create a web page?

[babylonsister]

13. That's possible and even worse. nt

[Catherina]

15. Self-delete. But bookmarked under Racism & HRC Supporters n/t

[superduperfarleft]

16. Good god, what does it take to get banned from this site? n/t

[Forkboy]

17. Yup, the same ones who mopped your floors, remember?

Why, I bet some of those black people are welfare moms too!

The horror...the horror.....

[Danger Mouse]

20. how dare they be so uppity??

[Window]

14. K/R.

:kick:

[Catherina]

18. Rec'd It's getting out there. WSJ's Washington Wire had this yesterday

March 28, 2008, 8:10 am
Political Perceptions: Obama and….Bloomberg?
Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Gerald F. Seib and Sara Murray

...

Throughout Obama’s minister controversy, little was mentioned about Clinton’s own ties to a fairly odd religious organization, Joshua Green notes on the Atlantic’s Web site. Clinton’s affiliation is with a group called The Fellowship, which is a secretive Christian organization designed to “minister to political and business leaders throughout the world, modeling itself as a kind of Christian Trilateral Commission.” While some reporters have tackled the task of writing about the group, members are very hush-hush and the group’s archives — once available at Wheaton College — are now restricted. “Like Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity Baptist Church, The Fellowship is run by its own mysterious and controversial figure, Douglas Coe, although temperamentally Coe is Wright’s opposite,” Green notes. “He eschews the spotlight and has never made a controversial public utterance that I’m aware of — mainly because he rarely speaks publicly at all.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/03/28/political-perceptions-obama-andbloomberg/?mod=WSJBlog

[Leo 9]

22. Hillary's Minister Problem (Joshua Green; theatlantic.com)

Wednesday, 03.26.08

Hillary's Minister Problem


Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Barack Obama isn't the only candidate with ties to a controversial religious group.


Since Hillary Clinton has launched a frontal attack on her opponent's church and pastor, it's worth noting that she has some odd religious ties of her own. When I was profiling her two years ago, I learned about her involvement with a secretive Christian organization called The Fellowship that has operated in the Washington shadows since the 1930s. I found the story of Clinton and The Fellowship so bizarre that I made it the lede to my piece. In light of recent events, it's worth revisiting.


If you've never heard of The Fellowship (also known as The Family), it will sound like some shadowy organization in a John Grisham novel. (Indeed, as a Google search will demonstrate, critics consider it a cult.) The group was formed in the 1930s to minister to political and business leaders throughout the world, modeling itself as a kind of Christian Trilateral Commission. Several members of Congress are affiliated with the group, mostly Republicans, but some Democrats, too. To the extent The Fellowship is known beyond its members it is probably for founding the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

snip

In my piece, I chose to focus on the Senate prayer group, but others have written extensively about the strangeness and secrecy of The Fellowship. As this Los Angeles Times story and this exquisitely reported Harper's piece make clear, there is something deeply strange about the group. They certainly do not like press coverage, so in that regard Clinton's attraction might make sense. Reporters hoping to look into the group might want to think again. A few years ago, The Fellowship’s archives, which are held at Wheaton College, the evangelical school in Illinos, were reclassified as “restricted” and placed under lock and key.

— Joshua Green

snip

http://thecurrent.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/03/clinton-fellowship.php

[Leo 9]

23. MSNBC Opens The Door On Hillary's Participation In The Family

Headlined on 3/26/08:
MSNBC Opens The Door On Hillary's Participation In The Family

by Steve Brant

http://www.opednews.com


Shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern today, Andrea Mitchell interviewed Joshua Green of The Atlantic regarding Hillary Clinton's participation in The Fellowship (a/k/a The Family). You can read my opinion of Hillary's participation in this organization (including links to background articles in Harpers in early 2003 and Mother Jones in late 2007) in my earlier post on this subject.

I am posting this follow up to acknowledge MSNBC for cracking open the door on this vastly under-reported subject and Joshua Green for his new reporting on the subject in The Atlantic. Here's how his report ends...

In my piece, I chose to focus on the Senate prayer group, but others have written extensively about the strangeness and secrecy of The Fellowship. As this Los Angeles Times story and this exquisitely reported Harper's piece make clear, there is something deeply strange about the group. They certainly do not like press coverage, so in that regard Clinton's attraction might make sense. Reporters hoping to look into the group might want to think again. A few years ago, The Fellowship's archives, which are held at Wheaton College, the evangelical school in Illinois, were reclassified as "restricted" and placed under lock and key.

You can watch his interview with Andrea Mitchell below. The most telling point for me was when Andrea said "... clearly she is involved in a religious organization that is much more right wing that she (pause) claims to be

snip

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steve_br_080326_msnbc_opens_the_door.htm

[Leo 9]

25. Say Hillary, What About The Religious "Family" You Have Chosen To Be Part Of?

March 26, 2008 at 09:33:15


Say Hillary, What About The Religious "Family" You Have Chosen To Be Part Of?


by Steve Brant

http://www.opednews.com



"You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." said Hillary Clinton, to reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Tuesday the 25th.

This is an interesting choice of words, since - while we mostly hear about her Methodist upbringing - Hillary Clinton has chosen to associate herself with The Family (also known as the Fellowship), a very conservative, fundamentalist organization started by Abraham Vereide...

"...an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a "family" that thrives to this day. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of "biblical capitalism," military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, Doug Coe, the Family's current leader, declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."

This quote is taken from the book on The Family by the same name which will be published in May... a book which claims to

"...dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not "What do fundamentalists want?" but "What have they already done?"

snip

Is it possible that Hillary's participation in this fundamentalist group - which apparently preaches the "gospel of military might" - would help explain her vote in favor of authorizing President Bush to attack Iraq? Is it possible her pro-NAFTA stance during her husband's administration comes from its embrace of "the no-holds-barred economics of globalization"? Is it possible that the sense some get that Hillary feels entitled to be president comes in part from this group's belief that "it's only the elites who matter"?

snip

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steve_br_080326_say_hillary_2c_what_ab.htm

[dchill]

19. K,R

[Cheap_Trick]

21. everytime they pastorbate

we need to make sure this gets exposed far and wide.

[DearAbby]

24. I cringe at the term.."THE FAMILY"

sounds extremely cultish.

[Leo 9]

26. Here's another article on this.

Hillary's Nasty Pastorate

The Nation: When It Comes To Unsavory Religious Affiliations, Clinton Is A Lot More Vulnerable Than Obama

March 21, 2008

The Nation) This column was written by Barbara Ehrenreich.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

snip

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells" - their term - and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, Sharlet joined The Family's home for young men, forswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners - alone.

During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand "Communists" killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise.

At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family's young women's group. And, at The Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful.

snip

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/20/opinion/main3955108.shtml

[RememberWellstone]

28. You want to keep defending Wright?

it will do you no good, especially in the GE. The hate-filled Pastor is poison ivy and there's no way to change that. Give it a rest on all the hyperbole and hearsay it makes you look desperate.

[Leo 9]

29. Is there a chance Wright is right?

Is there a chance Wright is right?

By David Sirota

Syndicated Columnist

snip

It is polite pinstriped prejudice shrouding bigotry in feigned outrage against extremism — the operative word being "feigned." After all, John McCain solicited the endorsement of John Hagee — the pastor who called the Catholic Church "a great whore." Similarly, according to Mother Jones magazine, Hillary Rodham Clinton belongs to the "Fellowship" — a secretive group "dedicated to 'spiritual war' on behalf of Christ." She is also friendly with Billy Graham, the reverend caught on tape spewing anti-Semitism. But while Wright's supposed "extremism" blankets the news, McCain's and Clinton's relationships with real extremists receive scant attention.

Why is it "controversial" for one pastor to address the black community, racism and blowback, but OK for another pastor to slander an entire religion? Why is it news that one candidate knows a sometimes-impolitic clergyman, but not news that his opponent associates with an anti-Semite? Does the double standard prove the dominant culture despises a black man confronting taboos, but accepts whites spewing hate? Does the very reaction to Wright show he's right about racism?

Clinton seems to think so. Her aides have been calling the states they believe Obama will lose their political "firewall." That's campaign-speak for "race wall" — one built with bricks like Pennsylvania and Indiana. These aren't the near-purely white states where racial politics is often muted (and Obama won). They are the slightly diverse states where racial politics simmers and where the black vote is too small to offset a motivated racist vote. This race wall is now being fortified.

ABC News reports that Clinton's campaign is "pushing the Wright story" ahead of the Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries. The crass tactic is designed to motivate the racist vote by reminding whites of Obama's connection to the African-American community. Put another way, Clinton's message has become simply: Obama Is Black.

snip

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2004313756_sirota31.html

[Leo 9]

30. Better Wright than the right wing nuts with whom Hillary holds a leadership position.

Sunday, February 3, 2008
Jeff Sharlet, The Family, 2008



"Just when we thought the Christian right was crumbling, Jeff Sharlet delivers a rude shock: One of its most powerful and cult-like core groups, the Family, has been thriving. Sharlet's book is one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you'll ever read -- just don't read it alone at night!"
--Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch, and Dancing in the Streets

From the bookjacket:

They are the Family—fundamentalism’s avant-garde, waging spiritual war in the halls of American power and around the globe. They consider themselves the new chosen, congressmen, generals, and foreign dictators who meet in confidential cells, to pray and plan for a “leadership led by God,” to be won not by force but through “quiet diplomacy.” Their base is a leafy estate overlooking the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia, and Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have written from inside its walls.

The Family is about the other half of American fundamentalist power—not its angry masses, but its sophisticated elites. Sharlet follows the story back to Abraham Vereide, an immigrant preacher who in 1935 organized a small group of businessmen sympathetic to European fascism, fusing the Far Right with his own polite but authoritarian faith. From that core, Vereide built an international network of fundamentalists who spoke the language of establishment power, a “family” that thrives to this day. In public, they host prayer breakfasts; in private they preach a gospel of “biblical capitalism,” military might, and American empire. Citing Hitler, Lenin, and Mao, the Family's leader declares, "We work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."

Sharlet’s discoveries dramatically challenge conventional wisdom about American fundamentalism, revealing its crucial role in the unraveling of the New Deal, the waging of the Cold War, and the no-holds-barred economics of globalization. The question Sharlet believes we must ask is not “What do fundamentalists want?” but “What have they already done?”

snip

http://jeffsharlet.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post.html