Listening to Racheal about C Street has me terrified:The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its N

[Peacetrain]

This ranks right up there with the Skull and Bones stories, that I always thought were more " just story" than truth.

This is not the group that Hillary was going to is it?


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062504480.html
The Political Enclave That Dare Not Speak Its Name

It blends into the streetscape, tucked behind the Library of Congress, a few steps from the Cannon House Office Building, a few more steps to the Capitol. This is just the way its residents want it to be. Almost invisible.

But through one week's events, this stately old pad -- a pile of sturdy brick that once housed a convent -- has become the very nexus of American scandal, a curious marker in the gallery of capital shame. Mark Sanford, South Carolina's disgraced Republican governor and a former congressman, looked here for answers -- for support, for the word of God -- as his marriage crumbled over his affair with an Argentine woman. John Ensign, the senator from Nevada who just seven days earlier also was forced to admit a career-shattering affair, lives there.


EDIT TO ADD.. C Street, K Street, just so odd

[Cleita]

1. The loyalty to the group first and everything else after, had a familiar ring

to me. Raised as a Catholic, although we were taught loyalty to our country and said the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag every day, there was always the lesson taught that we obeyed God first and the President second. Fair enough. However, the Pope as God's voice on earth should be obeyed first and the President second. Hmmmmm.
Fortunately, in those days, the Pope didn't involve himself in our politics very much, unless it affected the Vatican, directly.

[Peacetrain]

3. I swear to GOD Cleita, it almost sounded Jonestowney..

:scared:

[Cleita]

8. Yes, very cultish, but what's scary is that these people are our elected leaders.

:scared:

[Peacetrain]

10. Exactly.. and apparently they have a made a bond stronger to each other

than to the people that elected them. Dangerous when you get into that frame of mind.

[kenfrequed]

27. Sure...Jonestown without the benefits

Well the benefits to us anyhow when we would inevitably have to replace suicidal fascist congressmen.

[Ilsa]

2. What is wrong with these men that they can't be happy with their wives, jobs, and careers?

Isn't their religion helping them to see that going on a boinking binge isn't going to make them happy about their lives? They have to go screw it all up when they have what some people call "everything"? Are they so weak that having a family and respect isn't enough? They have to chase women to feel really good about themselves? I feel like giving them one big slap across the face and screaming "snap out of it" about their pathetic egos.

[elleng]

7. Its life, Ilsa.

I see no need to bash these guys for doing what millions/billions do and have done thru the ages.

[phaseolus]

16. perhaps the "chosen by God" conceit helps ... ???

Since they apparently truly believe that they're in office because God *wants* them there, it's probably not much of a leap to feel entitled to all the stuff -- fancy cars, the expensive watch, a yacht, travel, trophy mistresses -- that they see the most successful lobbyists with. And, if it's a 'forbidden' thing like the mistress, I bet they feel they can fool around, have a come-to-jesus moment, get all forgiven, lather, rinse, repeat...

[WCGreen]

18. I knew a crackhead who said the same thing...

God wants me on the pipe...

[Stephanie]

21. Sharlet calls it "wounded entitlement"

This is the guy who infiltrated the group to write a book on them:

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/795/christ_ueber_alles_1/

Guenica: Is there a certain type of person who might be drawn to the Family? The one quality they seem to have in common is a sense of entitlement.

Jeff Sharlet: I would qualify that—wounded entitlement. There’s a sense of entitlement but a sense also somehow these guys have been robbed of their due. But I think the other thing that unites these characters, usually on a personal level, is their high integrity. If you dropped your wallet on the street, you’d want one of them to find it. And not just because they are Christians, but because they tend to be decent people and also orderly people in that sense. But there’s also another common thread that’s surprising—we’re talking about people who are elites, in this powerful world, and people who thrive in a world that is run on the principles of rationalism, and yet people are drawn to the Family as opposed to the more conventional Christian right because there’s a seeker element to it, there’s a mysticism, there’s almost a kind of Gnosticism to how it works. So you take someone like Abraham Vereide, the original founder of the Family, and he’s having visions of God. That’s not standard conservatism. Doug Coe, Vereide’s successor, is a Gnostic in the worst sense, but he is very much a Gnostic and a mystic, which is also true of some of the men who they are able to recruit—like Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas. At one point, while I was hanging around with him, he called me up and said, Jeff, I just want to share something that is on my heart, and he starts talking about the great spirit. The great spirit? And he says, you know, like the American Indians have. I mean, I could go down to the local head shop and hear this kind of talk. A lot of the Family characters throughout have that. It’s an authoritarian mysticism.

[Odin2005]

30. Sounds like Nazi Occultism!

[elleng]

4. Yes, that is , as I understand, she's attended to their 'prayer' breakfasts or meetings

on a fairly routine basis.

[Peacetrain]

6. That makes me really sad to think she got herself mixed up with a group like that

[Fridays Child]

13. Hillary is willing to pay whatever dues are necessary to gain entrance to the inner sanctum.

While part of me admires that about her, I can't help worrying that, at some point, these toxic associations might change her. She is, after all, human and subject to the same desires as anyone else.

[Lorien]

17. But it's a cult that believes that women are inherantly inferior

so why sign on?

[Fridays Child]

23. Reconciling those issues is probably irrelevant.

I'd be surprised if she buys into their belief system, at all. But, if what she wants is access to the power that C Street boys wield, all I can say is she's playing a dangerous game.

[billyoc]

5. That's the same group, yes.

[rustydog]

9. So-called Christian men counseling others when they stray

The philandering Sanford was not a secret on C street and was counselled to pay off his mistress by these Christian representatives who supposedly live their lives following the teachings of Jesus Christ!

I have a funny feeling the only time you hear Jesus in C street is during the televised swimsuit competition for Ms Hooters 2009.

It is hard to fathom, these holier-than-thou born-again retards bearing false witness, coveting other women, taking the name of the Lord in vain (it is not cursing that takes His name in vain, it is living a lie in His name!) taking bribes for votes, preaching the hating of gays and minorities. Give me a hallejuah brothahs!

And the culturally deficient, morally bankrupt, ethically challenged GOP don't have any other message to preach is hate and division.
America is fed up with their message, but they have absolutely nothing to hang onto but hate and division.

No wonder Obama kicked their asses last November.

[unc70]

22. Unfortunately, not limited to GOP. Many Dems/DLC in or close to Family

While it would be nice to believe "Obama kicked their asses", it seemed more like the path was being cleared for him behind the scenes by some very powerful groups. Obama and Clinton were the most "centrist" of all the Dem candidates, each very much a part of and acceptable to the "Establishment".

While Clinton has closer ties to the Family itself, Obama has many of its "friends" among his advisors and administration. Also many with ties to a couple of other powerful "circles".

I see many similarities between these "elites" in the US and those elsewhere like Operation Gladio in Italy and corresponding groups in other countries.

[mzmolly]

11. What's interesting is that this cult has been outed as being highly influential

in today's American Political system. They essentially set the tone for dialog on the right, and yes, it's frightening.

[Fridays Child]

12. Only sunlight--and lots of it--can cure this disease called C Street.

:kick:

[lob1]

14. I watched that piece. Creepy. Maybe it's because I live in California,

but the whole thing reminded me of the Manson family, only successful.

[Clio the Leo]

15. Zach Wamp is my Congressman .... he's now running for Governor....

GET HIM RACHEL GET HIM!!!!!!!! Help save the poor oppressed citizens of the state of TN!!!!!

[Stephanie]

19. Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics

The original Mother Jones link is broken, but here's a copy of their article:

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=23858

Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics
September 1, 2007

---snip---

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. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

***

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

***

Coe's friends include former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Reaganite Edwin Meese III, and ultraconservative Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.). Under Coe's guidance, Meese has hosted weekly prayer breakfasts for politicians, businesspeople, and diplomats, and Pitts rose from obscurity to head the House Values Action Team, an off-the-record network of religious right groups and members of Congress created by Tom DeLay. The corresponding Senate Values Action Team is guided by another Coe protégé, Brownback, who also claims to have recruited King Abdullah of Jordan into a regular study of Jesus' teachings.

The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance.

***

These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also a regular.

[vaberella]

20. I kept thinking "Illuminati". n/t

[jasi2006]

24. Happy to see you keeping this issue alive.

It sank pretty quickly here and in the media. Closets of Power!

[Peacetrain]

26. To be honest, this was not even on my screen till yesterday..I had not paid any attention

to it till I was listening to Rachael last night. My guess for most people the implications have probably not clicked with.

That is why I put up and edit with K Street and C Street.. I bet if you asked 99% of the American people what K Street had to do with the economy and politics..they would not know.. The names are just so innocuous, that it slips right past you.

[gauguin57]

25. Yes. Hillary Clinton WAS (or is?) a member of The Fellowship.

Creepy!

[Doremus]

28. A fat lot of good praying with the fundies did for Hillary when they impeached her husband.

You couldn't make up some of this stuff.

[Cognitive_Resonance]

29. Most troublesome aspect is the receptiveness to cult-like manipulation

It's obviously much more than a bible study group, or run-of-the mill men's fellowship. They surrender their personal decision making authority. That is very wacky stuff, and it's not just one or two goofballs. Not the kind of individuals the country needs in high office.

[ecstatic]

31. That was a good segment. It really explained repug hypocrisy

Un a nutshell, repubs think they are exempt from the rules everyone else has to follow. "We can get away with it because we are God's chosen ones."

:eyes:

[LiberalFighter]

32. Opus Dei?

[AspenRose]

33. YWAM!

The house is owned by YWAM! I've heard some bad stuff about them. :scared:

"Further information surfaced concerning YWAM in the book "Spiritual Warfare" written by Sarah Diamond published in 1989. It seems that YWAM has sought political influence. Specifically, active participation in the so-called "Anatole Fellowship" later reorganized as the "Christian Public Policy Council". Ron Boehme of YWAM was an executive committee member in 1985. The group sought "to gain influence within the Republican Party" and later in a 1987 meeting discussed "electrical strategies" with "South Africa, Nicaragua and El Salvador (page 130)".

Further political involvement is evident through a meeting (June 1982) with an aide to Rios Montt, former dictator of Guatemala and a small group of so-called "Christian Right" leaders. This group included Loren Cunningham, head of YWAM. Montt was a leader in Gospel Outreach's Guatemalan Verbo Church. Gospel Outreach is based in California. Rios Montt traveled extensively throughout the United States on a speaking tour put together by leadership of the "Christian Right" (pages 164-167). The regime of General Rios Montt (1982-83) was later accused and exposed for its crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. One complaint filed by survivors states that more than 1,000 people were murdered in 11 village massacres between March and December of 1982 within Guatemala.

Third World missionaries for YWAM may travel at personal, risk perhaps due to these political involvement. In 1987, six white YWAM missionaries were held captive by RENAMO (a South African backed guerrilla force) after several attempts, they were "rescued". It is unclear whether they were kidnapped, or "removed for their own protection" by RENAMO. "News reports indicated an alliance between elements of the Christian Right and RENAMO (pages 198-200)."

As of 1988, Loren Cunningham (according to Gary North) "began studying Reconstructionist writings…with the intent of incorporating 'dominion' or 'kingdom' theology into the ideological training given to YWAM missionaries. (page 206)."

More at:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/youth/youth6.html



Edited to add more bizarre stuff:

Political involvements

Journalist Frederick Clarkson


Frederick Clarkson is an United States journalist and public speaker in the fields of politics and religion. He is the author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy and co-author of Challenging the Christian Right: The Activist's Handbook...published an account alleging that Loren Cunningham supported a 1982 coup by Efraín Ríos Montt.


Efraín Ríos Montt

....former de facto President of Guatemala of Guatemala, Dictator, Military of Guatemala, and former president of Congress of Guatemala....


YWAM has also been described as having "sought to gain influence within the Republican party." On October 14, 2005, Youth With A Mission donated $10 million dollars to train youth for Rod Parsley.

Rodney Lee Parsley , an United States televangelist, is senior pastor of World Harvest Church, a Pentecostalism megachurch in Columbus, Ohio and founder and president of The Center for Moral Clarity....Restoration Ohio project which worked on behalf of socially conservative Republicans and included goals to register 400,000 voters and to evangelize one million Ohioans.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Youth_With_A_Mission