In the course of my reading on this MLK morning, I happened upon something that caught my attention. On Talking Points Memo, at the top of the front page was a Google banner ad for three unrelated entities, one of which is “Rockets Red Glare,” a site that boldly proclaims that it is selling “Republican Bumper Stickers.” This is an odd enough placement for Republican advertising, so I clicked over to look at the inventory. As you can read from the link, it’s pretty unattractive stuff, but doesn’t go much beyond borderline incendiary. There are, however, several offerings invoking prayer for Obama with a biblical reference that bears closer examination. All of these “prayerful” novelties refer to Psalm 108:8, which reads as follows:
“May his days be few; may another take his office.”
Harmless enough, one might suppose; until you read what follows that slyly truncated text. As The Christian Science Monitor observed back in 2009, the cited passage takes on a sinister significance when the thought is completed:
“Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”
If the Republican Party would argue its complete lack of culpability for the atmosphere of menace that wafts in from the trigger-happy fringe, perhaps they would be wise to have their name removed from this “humorous” novelty company’s advertising.
Republican voters openly calling for the murder of a President solely for being a Democrat is so normal now that the right doesn’t even comprehend that it’s wrong.
Another right-wing saying:
“My country, right or wrong.”
But they ALWAYS forget the rest of that aphorism:
“My country, right or wrong.
When right, to be kept right,
When wrong, to be set right.”
Of course the Republicans will argue that anything the helps the Citizens of America is automatically ‘wrong’, and everything that forces the impoverishment of as many citizens as possible is ‘right’…
Republicans will never be happy, even when they know they intentionally caused their neighbors to starve to death… Republicans won’t be happy until Rush Limbaugh orders Glenn Beck to issue the command to start killing everyone that doesn’t vote Republican – which ought to be shortly after a Democrat is elected to the Presidency in 2012…
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/P…
But hey, don’t blame us if people with some mental issues pick up on the negative shit, and besides, you people hated Bush!
just two short years ago, the rightwing was off the road, had rolled their rig over a cliff & stuck in a ditch.
Evangelical political luminaries were frantic, Dobson was inconsolable. Huckabee, an evangelical minister (don’t get me started) made a disturbing & tasteless joke concerning Obama related to his supposed fear of being shot. Though later apologized, when sending these types of signals to constituency, implication is clear.
Having the opportunity to observe the behavior of these individuals since at one time being part of the bible believing church, an eyeopener.
In the evangelical Golden Years, throughout the eighties, newbies were fed a mixture of politics & biblical truth from the likes of Robertson to the extent they became indistinguishable. Servings of rightwing ideology on the same plate as the gospel dilutes it’s toxicity & doesn’t appear terribly harmful, esp when considering OT bible prophets were up to their neck in politics.
Having an understanding from being steeped in this environment makes these seemingly innocuous accessories, such as creepy bumperstickers w/out-of-context scripture, troubling. Using a religious or spiritual context as basis for this bs is a huge distortion of the true message.
Though there is no love lost between left & right, both are capable of duking it out & delivering KO punches, the religious right claims the essence of the Almighty w/in its ranks but fails to behave accordingly. Though not a Republican Party platform, vast majority of members are churchgoers. In & of itself this means nothing until their church leaders & those in ministry that the party recognizes as leaders start serving their custom blend of religion & politics, placing them on equal footing while teaching them as interdependent on one another.
Churches & ministries, even the mainstream, who do this should be stripped of tax-exempt status, since doing this makes them a mere component of the political machine.
I believe the church has been marginalized because of the misuse of their mission which is religious malpractice imho. Until those w/in the church openly distance themselves from this destructive behavior & those like Palin, who on the one hand openly shares her mangled version of religion, and on the other coughs up, then spits out mean-spirited one liners nonstop while pandering to the violent tendencies w/in their ranks it will continue to be.