Piddle Again
Today is Friday, 27 August 2010.
"Anonymous" commented on the column, "Franklin Graham, Idolater":
“I just don't believe that the "root of the issue" is primitivism, blut und boden, and/or fertility. I believe that F. Graham is a publicity-seeking fool, who is willing to appear on television and/or radio and make remarks which garner attention for him. He is willing to pander to the idiocy of others, and to partially play to their fears and irrational beliefs - all the while appearing to be not too crazy ("So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said.")."
"The philosophical jump from that to Graham's "exaltation of the male sexual organ" and the assumption that Graham "particularly worships his own personal equipment" is simply a bridge too far for me.”
I agree that F. Graham is a pandering famewhore, but that’s not the whole of it, because he’s no fool. In addition to luring publicity to himself and his ministerial work, some of which seems coincidentally to do some actual good (while providing him with a posh lifestyle), he’s also, and this is the real point, promoting the contemporary form of phallus worship, which is patriarchal fascism, the ideology that females are to be ruled by males.
(That F. Graham "particularly worships his own personal equipment" is partly moi being snarky, but, considering the number of right-wing Christianist male ministers who have supersized appetites for extramarital sex (Swaggart, Haggard, etc. with prostitutes, for example), it isn’t necessarily far off the mark.)
A similar dynamic is in play with Terry Jones, the Florida fringe minister who is promoting himself by means of a Quran-burning festival on 9-11: he’s also promoting irrational fear of and hatred for all Muslims, and thus contributing to the atmosphere of anti-Islam bigotry and violence in this country.
People like F. Graham and T. Jones share much with the likes of Joe McCarthy and Jerry Falwell. On one level, it’s self-promotion for ego gratification and monetary profit. On other levels, they peddle an extremist agenda which serves the ambitions of certain segments of the political elites for political and social hegemony. In the case of McCarthy, he so lost self-control that he attacked one of the hands that fed him (the Republican regime of Eisenhower) and the US Army, and was put down. Falwell, of course, became a self-caricature, attacking lesbians and gays through the Teletubbies, and became increasingly irrelevant. Ann Coulter is presently on the latter track, and we wish her “godspeed”.
Yes, these people are clowns, but they are also a danger.
_______________________________________________
See a nice portrait of the “reverend” at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/26gainesville.html?_r=1&sq=koran burning florida&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1282900914-1pEhjFEeJZ756plROnfeAg
________________________________________________
On this date in 1789, the French National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
"Anonymous" commented on the column, "Franklin Graham, Idolater":
“I just don't believe that the "root of the issue" is primitivism, blut und boden, and/or fertility. I believe that F. Graham is a publicity-seeking fool, who is willing to appear on television and/or radio and make remarks which garner attention for him. He is willing to pander to the idiocy of others, and to partially play to their fears and irrational beliefs - all the while appearing to be not too crazy ("So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said.")."
"The philosophical jump from that to Graham's "exaltation of the male sexual organ" and the assumption that Graham "particularly worships his own personal equipment" is simply a bridge too far for me.”
I agree that F. Graham is a pandering famewhore, but that’s not the whole of it, because he’s no fool. In addition to luring publicity to himself and his ministerial work, some of which seems coincidentally to do some actual good (while providing him with a posh lifestyle), he’s also, and this is the real point, promoting the contemporary form of phallus worship, which is patriarchal fascism, the ideology that females are to be ruled by males.
(That F. Graham "particularly worships his own personal equipment" is partly moi being snarky, but, considering the number of right-wing Christianist male ministers who have supersized appetites for extramarital sex (Swaggart, Haggard, etc. with prostitutes, for example), it isn’t necessarily far off the mark.)
A similar dynamic is in play with Terry Jones, the Florida fringe minister who is promoting himself by means of a Quran-burning festival on 9-11: he’s also promoting irrational fear of and hatred for all Muslims, and thus contributing to the atmosphere of anti-Islam bigotry and violence in this country.
People like F. Graham and T. Jones share much with the likes of Joe McCarthy and Jerry Falwell. On one level, it’s self-promotion for ego gratification and monetary profit. On other levels, they peddle an extremist agenda which serves the ambitions of certain segments of the political elites for political and social hegemony. In the case of McCarthy, he so lost self-control that he attacked one of the hands that fed him (the Republican regime of Eisenhower) and the US Army, and was put down. Falwell, of course, became a self-caricature, attacking lesbians and gays through the Teletubbies, and became increasingly irrelevant. Ann Coulter is presently on the latter track, and we wish her “godspeed”.
Yes, these people are clowns, but they are also a danger.
_______________________________________________
See a nice portrait of the “reverend” at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/us/26gainesville.html?_r=1&sq=koran burning florida&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1282900914-1pEhjFEeJZ756plROnfeAg
________________________________________________
On this date in 1789, the French National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
posted by HH at 4:16 AM
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