In the interest of "knowing our enemy"...

[praxis1966]

I present to you for your approval the Unholy Quadrinity of the double edged sword known as the religious right. Their movement contains just about everything that chap leftist ass quicker than shit through a goose: reactionary politics and religious extremism. The following are documentaries I feel anyone who wants to stay well informed on the issue should see.

1) Fall from Grace: Focuses on the Westboro Baptist Church, the tiny congregation based in Topeka, Kansas. I'm sure by now most of you have heard of them, but this documentary does some real digging into the darker corners of Fred Phelps's "teachings" (namely child abuse).

+ YouTube Video

2) Jesus Camp: Arthur C. Clarke once said, "I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent." Which is exactly the problem with the religious right. It would be fine if they kept to themselves, but they insist on sending children to reeducation/concentration camps and they want to get their hands on yours as well so they can turn them into budding holy warriors.

+ YouTube Video

3) Hell House: Documents a so-called "alternative" to the age old tradition by groups like the Jaycees of setting up haunted houses. In the "Hell House" groups of children, some not even 10 years old, are very graphically exposed to the ideas that all gay people will get aids, die and go to hell, RU-486 can kill you and you'll go to hell, all drug dealers are either black or Latino/a and are going die and go to hell, going to a rave means you'll be gang raped, commit suicide, and go to hell, e-mail will send you to hell faster than being a drunken wife beater, and various and sundry other hell worthy trespasses.

+ YouTube Video

4) Waiting for Armageddon: When your indoctrination is complete, what do you do? Form voting blocks and lobby groups to drop a nuclear warhead on Palestine so that the 'Temple on the Mount' can be reconstructed, cheer carnage and bloodshed in the Middle East, and work to try and create via artifice the end of the fucking world. In the meantime, set up funds to support the Zionist agenda, just make sure that you don't tell the Jews your little plan entails the genocidal murder of all but 144,000 of them, ie a second Holocaust.

+ YouTube Video

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think that Jesus Camp has lost a lot of it's impact in recent years. I imagine that it would've been terrifying to watch in 2004 (had it been made in 2004), right after the religious right was used as shock troops for the GOP in order to dominate both houses of Congress during the midterm elections in 2002, and would later help cement in another term for G.W. Bush. I think that they're getting more and more politically marginalized, though, and that's a trend that I think we'll only see increase as more time passes.

(I'm speaking more about some of the subtext that JC presents about the religious right's political clout, rather than the actual brainwashing that's portrayed with the kids.)

[NGNM85]

I'd recommend "What's the Matter With Kansas?" (Either the book or the documentary.)