How to use code words to galvanise your base

the problem is

as much as they want to meet their maker and hasten Christ's return, they seem to fight it like crazy.  After all, how else can you explain their stance on Terri Schiavo, demanding her soul mercilessly be artificially tethered to this world instead of letting nature take its course and her to meet her maker?  I'm guessing there's a small part of them that knows they're not doing good in supporting G-d's plan because they fear the humiliation of being left behind after the rapture themselves.

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by: ol cranky @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 07:17:28 AM CDT

I noticed that

I told my husband after the Berlin speech that someone would start woofing the Antichrist theme.

Besides McCain's campaign, Hal Lindsay of Late Great Planet Earth fame penned a column in World Net Daily proclaim this theme, too:

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?f...

Back in 2000 I was rather positive toward McCain.  Now I wonder if senile dementia is beginning to set in.  

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by: Zorya @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 07:55:26 AM CDT

Wow.

Crazy xenophobia in that article (Europe is eeeeevvvvullll!) mixed with crazy bible prophecy.  Now all he needs to do is throw in the muslim or black thing and he'll have a grand slam.  I vaguely remember "Late Great Planet Earth" and IIRC, it was taken kind of seriously and had stuff on tv about it, or am I thinking of the ancient alien astronauts visiting Earth?

My America includes LGBT families.

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by: Mena @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 11:30:53 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

You're thinking of "Chariots of the Gods"

Late Great Planet Earth was one of the End Times Prophecy gak that was aimed more at the fundamentalist and dispensationalist audience.

Back when I was young and inexperienced (1973) I picked up a copy because I had just finished Chariots and thought it was in the same genre.  Scared the bejesus out of me - growing up Roman Catholic I was never exposed to the idea of the Rapture and premillennial theology.

What is funny to me is that the same "bible prophecy unfolding in today's news" shtick is working for him after 35 years of being proved wrong.  (shrug) I guess some people will believe anything.

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by: Zorya @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 12:00:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

That was it!

And people will indeed believe anything.  Apparently Bush still has a not abysmal approval rating!
http://www.pollingreport.com/B...
I do suspect Stockholm Syndrome for a couple percent.  ;^)

My America includes LGBT families.

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by: Mena @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 21:24:39 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Wow, he's graduated from "effeminate" to "antichrist"

You know, the Democraps have a talent for losing the most can't-lose elections (i.e. the last one), but it looks like the Repugnicans are going to make it difficult for them.

Ah well.  McCain really doesn't need the voters when he's still got the voting machines on his side.

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by: Mercedes @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 08:08:28 AM CDT

Plus

2) the traditional media still gives him a pass on lots of things for which they would crucify Obama, and

3) the current administration still has enormous power to scare the public into voting for McCain.  I fully expect a series of terror alerts like there were in 2004, and would not be surprised if there were an escalation of military action somewhere to encourage Americans to rally behind.

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by: scioto @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 08:40:42 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Obama can join the crowded club

Just in the last twenty years alone, people designated "the Anichrist" by various Christian preachers include Michael
Dukakis, Curt Cobain, Gore Vidal, John Kerry, and on and on. There have been so many Antichrists I feel left out not to have been named one myself.  Hmmm...maybe I could qualify as antipope instead.

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 09:21:01 AM CDT

I read the entire series...it was hilarious!

Honestly...it is sort of a June and Ward Cleaver view of the world...priceless in it's uptightedness and predictability...

Get it from the Library - it is a rollicking good satire - made better by the fact that they don't know how funny it is.

Question:  What does an atheist do when they fall to the floor and start "speaking in tongues"?

Answer: Get a CAT scan.

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by: Snooky Ookums @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 09:51:10 AM CDT

Better yet

Go to this blog and read this wonderful deconstruction of the series:

http://slacktivist.typepad.com...

Click on the Left Behind Archives.  Fred Clark takes on the series both artistically and  theologically  and decimates it.  :-)

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by: Zorya @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 12:04:50 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Beat me to it...

I was going to recommend that website also. So I'll second the recommendation. I'm very, very glad that I found Fred's analysis before I tried to read the series on my own. Unlike him, I don't think I would have been able to make it past the first few chapters.

Oh, and there's also the Right Behind site at http://exharpazo.blogspot.com/ which was inspired by Fred's posts on the subject and is quite entertaining.

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by: pia @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 16:01:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Yeah, but Obama can't point fingers

since he heavily peppers his rhetoric with Christian terms and symbolism.  He's sending his own "coded" messages about the supremacy of Christianity, and his firm membership in that popular club.  Makes me sick.

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners.

Lurleen on Twitter.

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by: Lurleen @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 11:24:12 AM CDT

This is why these ads work

Yeah, I think anyone who read Left Behind isn't going to vote Democratic anyhow, so I think these ads are targeting young Matrix viewers who are already turned off by Obama's religious imagery.  McCain (who cusses and makes crude jokes) is obviously not religious, he seems like the more secular choice, given Obama's messianic streak and his flock of true believers.

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by: Imagine @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 11:42:51 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

The ONE tell tale Rove signature

put something close to being unexceptable in your ad, then ALL the NEWS channels will endlessly run your nothing-buy-ad for FREE 24/7.
Obama needs to learn this trick, make your ads edgy, and skirt some taboo subject right up to the edge.

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 14:16:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Ah

But how do we KNOW Obama's not the Antichrist?
/Python

The problem is, by their own mythology, he fits.
Young, charismatic, "passing for" Christian, all the things the anti-Christ will do.

Since I believe the Beast of Revelation was Nero and that the antichrists (plural) of the Pauline letters were first century enemies, it's not an issue to me.

But there are millions of folks, who not certain of their own place on the Rapture Express, will vote against him just because of this.

No one ever talks about [extermination]. They just do it. And you go on with your lives, ignoring the signs all around you. And then, one day, when the air is still and the night has fallen, they come for you.

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by: valarltd @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 11:34:32 AM CDT

Before Obama

they made every Pope's name fit the 666 paradigm.
Which made me wonder why Catholics ever dared to make common political cause with Theonomists who intended to disenfranchise them...

I tell you Chica that no greater abomination exists than women denying their spirit of sisterhood and instead becoming the oppressor. -Rebeca, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

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by: MauraHennessey @ Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 05:42:50 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

hey

you left out the "(which shouldn't be a factor)" about him not being the anti-Christ.  Also, how do you know he's not the anti-Christ?  Hmm, the only way to know he's not, is by knowing that you yourself is the anti-Christ!  But I wouldn't let that stop me from voting for you.

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by: Imagine @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 11:36:05 AM CDT

I think I'd have a hard time making the argument

that an/the antichrist is just as eligible as anyone else. Although I was very tempted to add it.

thread drift - I've always wondered what would happen if someone was destined to be [fill in the evil blank] but didn't want to. What wins: free will or prophecy?

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Claim to fame: Posted first PHB diary to be demoted

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by: cindik @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 13:27:14 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

McHuckabee

McHuckabee is teaching the simple folks about Moses....the very very VERY SIMPLE folks.

Obama should pat Grampy McCain on his head, and say, "it's SO sad when seniors like John and Joe Lieberman rant to every stranger they meet,,,"he's like Moses, he's like Moses, he's like Moses"

  http://acandidworld.files.word...
he's like Moses
  http://www.scari.org/images/mc...
he's like Moses

they're ALL like Moses!

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 12:08:33 PM CDT

So, where's the list of Christian Reich code words?

Is there a list somewhere of all the dog-whistle phrases the Reich uses to signal without having their opponents catch on?  I'd love to have a list that I could use to scan news articles to find these little nuggets.

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by: Hazumu @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 19:17:21 PM CDT

a few for perusal

hard-working--white
law-abiding--white
real Americans--white and small town/rural
Middle America--ditto
the Heartland--ditto, but no further east than Ohio and no further west than Colorado
family (as in "protecting the")--married straight whites with 2 kids
family values--ditto
States rights--let the states solve their own gay/black/woman problem
silent majority--white straight Christian males
Christian--white (in my neck of the woods)
Activist judges--anyone whose rulings they don't like
legislating from the bench--a ruling they don't like
special rights--any rights for anyone not of the silent majority
redefining marriage--letting gays marry
articulate--black but able to speak understandably
well-spoken--ditto
clean--black and in a suit
entitlement--any program that puts money in the pockets of people and not corporations
Dred Scott--means "fetuses are people too!"

No one ever talks about [extermination]. They just do it. And you go on with your lives, ignoring the signs all around you. And then, one day, when the air is still and the night has fallen, they come for you.

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by: valarltd @ Sun Aug 03, 2008 at 22:58:05 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

they get moist on these phrases

homosexual, sodomist, pederist, she-male, uppity, quotas, activist judges, you're a great American, normal, bathed in the blood.

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 02:37:15 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I saw the "Left Behind " movie

The antichrist was the charismatic Secretary General of the UN

I can see where they made the leap because any charismatic liberal could break the hegemony of the Right...

Based upon Biblical sources, their antichrist is more likely to be a conservative who appears to be a devout evangelical..

I tell you Chica that no greater abomination exists than women denying their spirit of sisterhood and instead becoming the oppressor. -Rebeca, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

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by: MauraHennessey @ Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 05:40:05 AM CDT

Left behind series

The movie was dreadful, but the books are quite entertaining as B+ science fiction.  I read the first two quickly and have another around here somewhere.  But I highly recommend the first two of the series and if you get hooked, you've been warned!

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by: Dianne_in_DC @ Mon Aug 04, 2008 at 10:35:44 AM CDT