"The World Can’t Wait organizes people living in the United States to repudiate and stop the fascist direction initiated by the Bush Regime, including: the murderous, unjust and illegitimate occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; the global “war of terror” of torture, rendition and spying; and the culture of bigotry, intolerance and greed."
-from World Can't Wait's mission statement adopted 2009
To understand the Tea Party and other movements representing the "Culture of Bigotry" also see these topics:
I infiltrated the tea party rally an hour late because I was feeling sick. Fortunately, a friend came to pick me up while I was making signs. My sign said, "Tea Party? More like WHITE WHINE!" and hers said, "You'll thank me for healthcare later!" She also wore a shirt that said, "Two moms are better than none!"
I met another protester there. She carried a sign that said, "Healthcare is a human right" and we had an excellent conversation after the event.
The rally was much worse than I expected it to be.
Editor's note: "Tea Party groups across the country are holding a series of fascistic rallies beginning on April 15 and continuing at least through April 19. The following two articles, “White Nationalism on the March” by Glenn Ford, and “Slavery-Denial in Old Virginny” by Margaret Kimberley, provide important analysis of this phenomena, and some exposure of the powerful political forces driving this dangerous outburst.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has declined to investigate the shooting by federal agents on Oct. 28 of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah. The reason: the FBI reportedly told her it would not give her office certain classified documents.
This unusual action raises doubts that Michigan prosecutors can do a fair and thorough investigation of Abdullah’s death — and raises more fears of a government cover-up.
This article originally appeared on the Revolution website.
On September 12, several tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Washington, D.C. ostensibly against the Democratic Party healthcare proposal in Congress. In fact, this march represented a major political statement by a fascist movement.
To give a flavor of this, one reporter noted that “a burly Pennsylvania correction officer named David McElwee held up a poster of Obama photoshopped as a half-naked African native in a hut with a grass skirt and a bone in his nose.”
Two days earlier, in Scranton, Pennsylvania: “All around were satanic representations of President Barack Obama in whiteface, as a Nazi, an African witch doctor; a Marxist; a Muslim....” Signs depicted Obama as Osama Bin Laden. A woman in the crowd told a reporter that Obama was putting himself at a godly level, and that she was praying “for his conversion.” Was Obama a Muslim she was asked? “Only he knows.” Adding to her fury: she heard that Michelle Obama had a six hundred dollar pair of shoes. (Descriptions from “Who Is Barack Obama? And why do people say such loopy, ugly things about him? The enduring rot in American politics,” by Philip Weiss, New York Magazine, September 28, 2009)
World Can’t Wait proudly endorses the LGBT Equality March on WashingtonD.C. on October 10/11. We support the just demand for marriage equality for gay and lesbian partners and repeal of the “Defense of Marriage Act.”
We further support the right to adopt children and an end to work place discrimination; strengthening hate crime legislation; and demand an end to ripping families apart due to ICE’s (Immigration Control & Enforcement) refusal to recognize gay couples.
"In an ideal world, there would be no faith-based office," says the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "But if we must have this office, certain steps must be taken to bring it into line with the commands of the Constitution."
I agree that churches should finance their own social service programs and the government should fund secular groups doing service work to those in special need.
The office Lynn refers to is President Barack Obama’s Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, greatly expanded and strangely Bush-like in certain aspects. The most contentious is whether religious organizations will be allowed to discriminate in hiring people with whose lifestyle they disagree, as was the case under George W. Bush.
During his campaign in Ohio last July Obama said that “if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can’t discriminate against them – or against the people you hire – on the basis of their religion.” To fulfill that promise Obama would have to reverse Bush’s 2002 executive order allowing employment discrimination by religious organizations which receive federal funds under the program. As of this date, Obama has not done so. Whether he will remains in question, but until he does his campaign promise remains pure electoral posturing.
Darwin Day, February 12, 2009, marks the 200th anniversary of the Birth of Charles Darwin and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of his path breaking work “The Origin of Species by Natural Selection.” This year we hope that all readers of this site will find ways to celebrate Darwin Day and honor the enormous contribution Darwin made to our knowledge of how the world actually works.
This upholding of the evolutionary understanding of the world and of the scientific method is especially important now as fundamentalist religious groups try to get Intelligent Design/Creationism into public school science curricula. In Texas, for example, there has been a long fought battle by right wing religious people on the State Board of Education to get textbooks to include Intelligent Design as an alternative theory to evolution or at least to include discussion of the supposed “weaknesses” of evolutionary theory.
However, the National Center for Science Education has reported that “in a close vote on January 23, 2009, the Texas State Board Of Education approved a revision of the state's science standards lacking the controversial "strengths and weaknesses" language, which in 2003 was selectively applied by members of the board attempting to dilute the treatment of evolution in the biology textbooks then under consideration.”
Nevertheless this in no way indicates that the religious creationists will not continue their fight against reason in Texas, and anti-evolution legislation is pending in both Iowa and New Mexico. Continued vigilance is certainly called for.
“Rick Warren is a bigot! No ‘common ground’ with bigot Rick Warren!” shouted Sunsara Taylor as Rick Warren began his keynote address at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. She unfurled a banner that read “NO ‘Common Ground’ with Bigot Rick Warren!” and then was taken out by the ushers. The banner included the website, revcom.us, the revolutionary communist newspaper Sunsara writes for.
Following Sunsara, several other people turned their backs on Warren and were also forced to leave the church. Earlier in the day, about 100 people protested outside the church in a demonstration initiated by Black LGBT coalition and joined by GBLT Atlanta, TILLT, World Can't Wait, and others. The protest was spirited and attracted a lot of media.
“It is hard to think of anyone more antithetical to the legacy of the Civil Rights movement,” explained Sunsara Taylor. “Rick Warren is a bigot. He has dedicated himself to taking away people’s rights – the rights of gay people, the rights of women to abortion and birth control. He preaches unthinking obedience to biblical literalism and denies evolution. He is aggressively involved in efforts that are causing untold numbers of African people to suffer and die from AIDS by promoting ‘abstinence-only’ and disparaging condoms.”
“Rick Warren Cites Hitler Youth as Model for Christian Dedication” reads the headline on a recent piece on the internet by Bruce Wilson, a prominent religious right watcher and journalist. It contains part of a video, shown below, of the conclusion of a one-hour speech Warren delivered on April 17, 2005 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim next to Disneyland. The histrionics were worthy of a new Disney ride.
Warren called on the 30,000 crowd of believers to follow Jesus with the fanatical dedication which the Hitler Youth showed when they were asked to spell out with their bodies "Hitler, we are yours." Then Warren asked his followers to hold up signs saying “Whatever it Takes,” and totally devote their lives to conquering the world for Christ. This was an extreme form of the old time altar call as it asked people to make a thoughtless commitment to a chauvinistic goal. And it underscores the thoroughly reactionary program of Warren, in the service of not German, but U.S. imperialism.
When Barack Obama invited Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback mega-church and author of The Purpose Driven Life, to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, some raised their voices in protest. But all too many told people to just calm down, drink the Obama’Laid of “common ground,” and reach out their arms to this pastor who is nothing more than a Christian fascist in a Hawaiian shirt.
Rick Warren is no “moderate” and he is not progressive. He may be the “new face” of evangelicalism, but he doesn’t represent a new content.
First off, Warren is a biblical literalist. If you’re foggy on what that means, flip open the Bible to Leviticus 20:13 where it commands the killing of homosexuals, or to Exodus 21:15 where children who hit their parents are condemned to death, or Deuteronomy 13:13-19 where God requires his followers to “attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock” if even one person among them worships the “wrong” god. Does any of this represent “common ground” you want to be standing on?
Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist pastor of the Saddleback megachurch in Orange County, California, does not have the religious soft side many assume in light of his widely touted AIDS program. In the wake of the uproar over Barack Obama’s selection of Warren to pray at his inauguration, people have begun to see Warren for the biblical literalist, homophobic, right wing, rock-ribbed fundamentalist that he is, despite his aloha shirts and laid back manner. Nevertheless, he has been praised by many from Bush to Obama for his work for AIDS victims, especially in Uganda.
Warren’s point man in that AIDS-ridden nation is an unusual, nay weird, minister named Martin Ssempa, pastor of Makerere Community Church in Kampala. Ssempa preaches an AIDS gospel of abstinence only and no condoms, which has been condemned by AIDS activists because it damages efforts to prevent the disease and only allows treatment to an ever-increasing number of victims. Experts say that with that approach, for every two people treated, five more are infected.
by Jill McLaughlin, World Can’t Wait Steering Committee Member
I know you’re pissed, and probably really confused, and in shock that Obama, of all people, would choose Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. I’m pissed too, but for a different reason. I’m not confused, though, and I’m not all that shocked. What I’m about to say is pretty raw, blunt, and not so very nice…but it is the truth in all its naked glory. And this was not easy for me to write either. It took me awhile to get to this because in a free and quieter moment when I would have time to write this would hit me so hard and I’d be too enraged. What I write here comes from the depths of my heart and my human soul. I don’t give a shit if it offends the Christian right. After all, these are the same people who have said and done the most vile things in the last eight years to cheerlead and fuel the war crimes, civil liberties abuses, and hate crimes of the so-called “war on terror.”
I don’t care anymore and I am not going to take it anymore and neither should you. I’m done. I don’t care if it offends the left or the progressives who think we ought to “wait and see” and “give Obama a chance.” How about giving me a fucking break? It's high time the gloves came off. Our lives and most importantly the lives of the people of the world depend on it. And at the end of this I’m going to tell you to take that anger, shock, and confusion and turn it into a righteous, clear, and determined action.
First of all, you gotta understand that Obama never promised the LGBT people a break with the Christian Right. He has said all along that he doesn’t support gay marriage. He has said all along that he wanted to bring unity between those on the right and those on the left. When Barack Obama speaks of unity where the religious right is concerned what he actually means is “In order to run this empire I need the most powerful and richest political base, which is the Christian Right.” It matters little to him if he is seeking unity or common ground with those who seek to oppress so many sections of people in this country, i.e. LGBT, women, Muslims, Immigrants, etc.. He needs the right to run an empire that is in a lot of hot water right now. He has little use for us.
But Obama wasn’t going to be obnoxious or overt about giving the religious right a say in social or foreign policy in the way George Bush was. No, instead he dangled the carrot of “you can have job protection and you can visit your sick partner” in front of us. At the same time, he told us that he doesn’t support gay marriage. But he supports everything else for gays, right? Not so fast.He appeared sympathetic to LGBT issues, but then he goes and finds the most seemingly benign and “feel good” evangelical who wrote this nice book about how your life can have purpose. You know that book, The Purpose Driven Life? But your life only has purpose if you’re not gay or if you’re a self-hating gay and you never had an abortion or you don’t support a woman’s right to choose.
The recent announcement that the man who may lead the most “purpose driven life” in American society, Pastor Rick Warren, will be providing the invocation proves that progressives and liberals are willing to acquiesce and let the Obama Administration set the terms for change and proves that the Obama Administration will be all too willing to give individuals that promote hatred and intolerance of human beings a seat at the table.
The news that Pastor Warren was providing the invocation at the inauguration was quickly overshadowed as it became apparent that progressives and liberals were going to be rationalizing and justifying Obama’s decision so that progressives or liberals could be “okay” with Obama’s decision.
President-elect Barack Obama on December 17 announced that he had chosen fundamentalist pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation prayer at his inauguration. This is just one more of his many other moves toward the right of late. Immediate outrage broke out, most notably from the LGBT community.
“His presence on the inauguration stand is a slap in the faces of the millions of GLBT voters who so enthusiastically supported him,” said Kevin Naff, editor of the Washington Blade. “This tone-deafness to our concerns must not be tolerated. We have just endured eight years of endless assaults on our dignity and equality from a president beholden to bigoted conservative Christians. The election was supposed to have ended that era. It appears otherwise.”
(this article originally appeared as a letter in the Chicago Free Press)
Like many of the LGBT community, I recently joined the protests against the passing of Proposition 8. One sign at these protests in particular spoke volumes about why we can’t rely on politics as usual to protect or grant us our rights as human beings: “I voted for the first black President and all I got was this lousy marriage ban.” While many LGBT people voted for Obama, Obama stated repeatedly throughout his campaign that he did not support gay marriage. Even though he opposed Prop 8 he did not call on people to vote against it. Obama furthermore throughout the campaign said that he wants to expand Bush’s faith based initiati ves. Obama moreover refused to call out Dominionists such as Sarah Palin as a danger to the separation of church and state.
Update: Report from the NYC demonstrations after the break.
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Over the last eight years the Bush Regime codified a comprehensive reactionary political program: openly whipping up anti-gay sentiment; mandating the teaching of creationism in science class; restricting abortion and birth control based on biblical literalism that women are nothing more than incubators and should have no control over their bodies; calling for an end to the constitutional separation of church and state; launching and prosecuting endless unjust wars; carrying out torture as policy; violating sacrosanct civil liberties and civil rights; surveilling us all.
Millions were thrilled to see the Republicans voted out of office.
But who is to stop the Bush Program when Obama promotes finding common ground with Christian Fascists, war criminals and torturers? While Obama said he did not support Prop 8, he stated publicly many times that marriage should be between heterosexuals only. Instead of straddling the fence, he should have called for people to vote against Prop 8. Obama in fact has pledged to extend Bush's faith-based initiatives that have granted over $2.2 billion to religious organizations.
We Will Not Accept The Bush Program - No Matter Who Is President!
This weekend, John McCain said that Sarah Palin is successful as a vice presidential candidate, politically speaking, first and foremost because she appeals to antifeminist voters, and that she represents the antithesis to the feminist movement. While at first that rhetoric might seem as dated as his accusing Obama of supporting socialism, in fact it looks like McCain is a lot more tuned in to the right wing base than it appears.
"YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance"."
The savage lynching murder of James Byrd in Jasper, Texas, 10 years ago was one of those events that seared itself into the minds and souls of millions of people. James Byrd was tied to the back of a pickup truck by 3 armed white men and dragged through the woods of East Texas until his decapitated body was cut loose and discarded. Only an enraged public outcry brought this horrific crime to light and forced the state to try the 3 racists for murder.
Naomi Wolf is one of the brave voices. She warns in this video that a coup has taken place and that we have a small window of time within which to reverse things.
I agree with Ms. Wolf in most particulars but do see things in some respects quite differently. I will get to those differences at the end - I encourage you to read the links within this post as they elaborate much further on what's going on and why - but first, a short list of what I would describe as critical points along this sliding path to a police state.
As Wolf has pointed out in her book, The End of America, the initial stages of a "shift" contain fascist elements side-by-side with liberal democratic elements. This stage of co-existence can go on for some time, but sooner or later the fascist elements eat up the democratic ones. For those who aren't paying proper attention, in other words, day-to-day life can appear quite normal while the horrors build and build in the background.
By Darlene/Deennaa - former resident of my birth home Alaska
I am an indigenous native of Alaska - Indian. There has been no mainstream news & even little more in Alaska about what Sarah Palin thinks and does against our Natives of Alaska. I'm sure I'll be waiting til hell freezes over to see it in the public arena anywhere.
She opposes tribal sovereignty - which also covers, under the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act(ICWA) the right to keep our own children. Where is anyone telling this in national news? She opposes our inherent (and by Federal Law) our rights to our traditional way of feeding ourselves by hunting & fishing - this being called the "Subsistence issue".
By an anonymous college student 
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Partnerships, greatly expanded and strangely Bush-like in certain aspects. The most contentious is whether religious organizations will be allowed to discriminate in hiring people with whose lifestyle they disagree, as was the case under George W. Bush..jpg)
sentiment; mandating the teaching of creationism in science class; restricting abortion and birth control based on biblical literalism that women are nothing more than incubators and should have no control over their bodies; calling for an end to the constitutional separation of church and state; launching and prosecuting endless unjust wars; carrying out torture as policy; violating sacrosanct civil liberties and civil rights; surveilling us all. 
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